


Infinity

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Series: Iron Hearts [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Superman - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe, Bruce Feels, Bucky Barnes Feels, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Harley Is A Good Bro, Heavy Angst, Humor, I Don't Even Know, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prepare for the angst, Protective Bruce, Protective Bucky Barnes, Tony Feels, Tony is now a team with Bruce and Harley, because reasons, but you will all be sad, it'll happen, mark my tags, mostly at the end of the story, poor peter is just trying to warn everyone, the avengers are kind of scrambling here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-10-10 22:39:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10449099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: Peter knows that Terra is the final part of Thanos' plan so he and the Guardians set out to warn Terra before the attack in the hopes of skewing the odds in their favor. What he finds instead is a feisty team of superheroes who aren't so trusting of aliens.Tony is minding his own business with Bruce when Harley calls him to tell him the aliens are back and his blood runs cold.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You ever do something stupid when you're sleep deprived? Well I agreed to go on a date, which sounds fine except I'm asexual and aromantic and have no interest in any of that. Sleep deprived me is no longer allowed to make executive decisions. Unless with writing because then you guys get gems like this series :)
> 
> Warnings for some mentions of abuse and violence. 
> 
> Also prepare for hurt my friends, I have some plans for this series and it will go to some very ouchy places.

Harley didn’t expect to make a new friend, she was hardly the friend type these days, but the man at the park had her drawn to him. She knew why- he was dark, a mystery, and he was broken. All the things that drew her to J once upon a time but there was something different about this one. She thinks. Her own opinion was hardly trustworthy thanks to too much time spent in a relationship no one should have to suffer through.

That was the worst thing, she thinks, that she could no longer trust her own mind. Harley used to be brilliant once upon a time and now she knew she was a total dunce. If only the version of her in med school could see her now, she’d be horrified, Harley thinks. There was a time in her life when the idea of being controlled by anyone would have earned her revulsion, especially if that person was a man. She had enough of that as a kid with her deadbeat daddy; she didn’t need more of it. There was a saying that you ended up with people like your father and maybe it was true for Harley, but she knew that J was worse than her puissant father could have ever been. Smarter too, and that’s what drew her to him. It was what drew him to her too- she had been the only one who hadn’t been jerked around in circles going round and round until her head spun right off trying to figure him out. At least at first.

“Do you know what it’s like to question your own mind? To wonder if you’re thinking your own thoughts or theirs?” her companion asks. She hasn’t gotten a name and neither has he hasn’t asked for hers. The anonymity was nice; it made her feels less on edge to be attached to her own actions and the actions of all the villains she’s worked with. Except maybe Ivy, but who wouldn’t want to work with her? Harley thinks that her mysterious companion thinks the same way from the way he talks. It sounded like he’s been up to some nasty stuff but it makes her feel better to know that. It wasn’t healthy by any stretch of the imagination to feel glad that someone was as bad as her but sometimes it hurt to be around the heroes. Bruce and Tony… they were the best kind of people this species had, even if they didn’t see it.

But Harley knew what bad really was and no matter what Bruce and especially Tony did to convince themselves they weren’t heroes she knew they were. She’s seen real evil and it certainly wasn’t present in either man, even she wasn’t truly evil and she was nowhere near good.

“Yeah,” she says to her companion after a long few beats of silence. “I used to be so strong until… And now I barely even know what’s me and what’s him anymore.” She wasn’t even sure she wanted to find out. What if she did too much soul searching only to find all that bad in her is actually _her_ and not J? It was just easier to blame him than to wonder if all the bad things she’s done, all the _joy_ she got from hurting people, was all because she was evil all along.

“Do you ever wonder what life would be like without that one event that made things all go wrong?” he asks.

Harley laughs but the sound isn’t pretty, “all the time. But there’s no use in wondering about the ‘what ifs’ when you can’t turn back time.” If only she could go back, tell the young version of her never to try and understand why her daddy was the way he was. That there was no reason, or that the reason was that he _liked_ to be that way, then she would have never went into psychiatry. She would have never met her Puddin’, she would have never become ‘Harley Quinn’, she would have never been a villain. Maybe she would have even been a hero, who knows? But that wasn’t how things were and she didn’t want to think about what would have been if her life had ever had a normal moment.

“I guess,” her companion says softly. “You ever had a friend who changed so much you don’t even know who he is anymore?” he asks after a long moment.

Harley shrugs, “only person I’ve ever met that changed so much that I had no idea who they were anymore is myself. Maybe you’ve changed and that’s why your friend seems so different,” she says. That’s what happened with Tony. His closest friends, he thought they changed but it was him that changed and Pepper hadn’t been able to keep up. Tony didn’t seem to blame her for it but Harley had to wonder what made the woman seemingly prefer Tony pre- Iron Man. He was hot, but he was an ass. Not that she had a right to judge, she guessed. Maybe Tony’s chaos pre hero was easier to deal with because it didn’t involve nuking aliens. She could understand that. Rhodey adjusted better but maybe that was because Tony was more like him after Afghanistan. She’s never met him but the way Tony talked about him made him sound like he was the real hero, not Iron Man.

“Nah. I mean yeah, I’m not… I’m not who I was. But my friend, he changed long before I did. Is it selfish to want that back even if it might mean other people suffer?” he asks.

“Everyone wants something that’ll make other people suffer,” Harley tells him, “that doesn’t make you selfish, that makes you human.”

*

Tony had given up the hero thing after the Accords, which seemed to be back in the legal process if the New York news was any indication. They weren’t causing international waves just yet but they were starting to attract almost as much attention as the Avengers have been lately.

“Can you please tell your previous teammates to _stop_ trying to solve Gotham’s problems? They don’t even know what Gotham’s problems _are_ ,” Bruce tells him via his comm, clearly annoyed. Tony sits behind the controls in the Batcave with FRIDAY keeping all lines of communication and visuals open so he could do his best to help Bruce. Harley was usually with him but with the latest villain takeover she insisted she would be more help in the field than behind the desk so Bruce had reluctantly taken her with him. Tony had confidently told him that Harley was ready but he had no real idea if she was or not. He was just a lot more willing than Bruce to chance it and his gamble was paying off. Harley knew things about Gotham’s villains that Bruce and Tony didn’t and so far she’s unearthed an entire network of tunnels Bruce had no idea existed that Penguin (what kind of absurd name is _that_?) was using to get around.

Tony had long ago highjacked Sam’s Redwing to map them out and kindly returned the lovely little bot when he was done with it. Visuals of Sam showed that he was _not_ impressed with the hack but Tony had better things to worry about, like Sam being in Bruce’s way and borrowing Redwing solved that for a time. Now time to tune Cap’s clock.

The benefits of having built all the stuff the Avengers used still was that he knew how to get into his own smart-tech. He was more than a little aware that people didn’t like the hackability of smart tech, Steve had pointed this out as a problem, but Tony’s code was purposefully difficult. Only people who knew him really well or were smarter than him would be able to realistically navigate the bizarre setup of his tech. Given that he was one of the smartest people on the planet and even the people who knew him best didn’t know him well he figured the tech was safe, except from him. If he ever went the way of the villain the Avengers would be so fucked and for some reason that brings him a weird amount of glee.

“Left, Cap,” Tony tells him after gaining entry to the Avenger’s system. The only one who didn’t hear that was Wanda, who didn’t need a comm to keep track of everyone. She was sort of like a human comm, which was a problem for Bruce in particular if Wanda caught on to Tony’s plan.

Steve, showing his loyalty to Tony for a hot second, finally got a taste of his own medicine when he ran straight into one of Penguin’s goons swinging a bat. It hurt to trust someone only to have them betray it, didn’t it? Tony grins happily and moves on to Clint, telling him to cover Cap’s ass to purposefully distract him from the sniper with him in his cross hairs. He tells Clint to move up about ten feet last minute as he calculates where the sniper’s shot would land, where Clint would jump, how long it would take from Clint to catch himself, and how long Wanda would take to react in case Clint’s own reflexes fail.

The shot misses Clint, barely, and he jumps backwards and trips like Tony calculated he would, sending him over the edge of the building. Clint reacts with plenty of time like Tony knew he would, sending a grappling arrow up and over the edge of the building, catching himself with plenty of time. Wanda took notice of him almost as soon as he went over so his backup would have worked just fine if Clint hadn’t saved himself.

Sam enters back into the action for about four seconds; just long enough to kick someone who was on Bruce’s ass out of his way, before Tony takes Redwing back and sends the bot towards Nat with instructions to corner her. She’d outsmart the bot or Sam would gain control back before that happened but by then they’d be far out of Bruce’s way. Harley takes over Sam’s job kicking villain ass and Bruce makes his way to Penguin.

“What the hell is going on with your bot, Sam? Is that thing instructed to shoot people who won’t pet it or something?” she asks, panting as she starts running to avoid being shot by the bot’s weapons systems.

“No, it isn’t! Something is wrong with it!” Sam yells as he runs after Redwing.

“There’s nothing wrong with your bot, Sam. Tony hacked us, I think. Care to explain, Stark?” Steve asks, ever the smart one.

“You’re all in the way so I’m getting you all _out_ of the way,” Tony says in a cheery tone.

“You almost killed me you bastard!” Clint yells.

“Oh shut up, I did not. I calculated the shot, your fall, and your reaction time and it paid off,” Tony says as he connects Bruce to the Avenger’s comm system so he could hear where they were and where they were headed.

“Calculated risk,” Steve says, disapproval clear in his tone.

“No more of a risk than any move _you_ calculate but by all means, imply Tony is reckless,” Bruce mumbles and Tony lets out a sharp laugh at that, glad he hadn’t missed _that_ gem of a sentence.

“ _My_ risks don’t involve nearly getting my team shot,” Steve snaps back, “what is it that you hold against me, Bat?”

“Really, so at no point before this has your team ever been shot at? I distinctly remember watching several clips of the Avengers being shot at before now. Were you not team leader then, or were you unaware that you were being shot at? That either makes you the most incompetent team leader in history or perhaps the least perceptive,” Bruce says briskly, skirting Steve’s question Tony notices.

Steve notices too, “and your grudge against me is due to…?” he asks, trailing off so Bruce could fill in the blanks.

“Your actions, Captain. Did I not make that clear the first time I saw you? Now get _out_ of my city, you’re causing problems being here and I don’t appreciate loosing more sleep,” Bruce tells him, kicking some goon out of his way. The force behind it was a little excessive for Bruce but given his current emotional state Tony figured that was reasonable. Harley trails behind him taking care of the stragglers with a shocking amount of efficiency.

“You used to _fight_ her?” Tony asks as he watches Harley managed to take out three men triple her size without breaking a sweat.

“It wasn’t pleasant,” Bruce tells him. No shit, Tony thinks. It never really occurred to him what kind of challenge was posed by either a hero or a villain unless he was actively fighting them before. Then he got in a nasty fight with Cap and Bucky and realized just what kind of team he was up against. Since then he’s gone though loads of video and figured out everyone’s strengths and weaknesses mathematically instead of just eyeballing it and guessing. On average he knew how hard they could hit, their favored moves, a basic intelligence score, strategic abilities, and what their weaknesses were. It wasn’t as if he was _lacking_ this information before, but he made an effort to study it when the Avengers made it their business to be a pain in Bruce’s ass and therefore a pain in his ass also.

It was Harley’s scores that had surprised him though. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting but her strategy scores were higher than Steve’s and he and Nat tied for second, Clint and Sam following closely for third. Her intelligence score was the highest of everyone’s but Tony’s, her weaknesses were hard to come by because she was so unpredictable- like Tony- but her risks were must be as heavily calculated as his own. She _had_ to be a math genius or something because normal people couldn’t just risk their ass like that and have it work out for them so often. Or maybe she was just really lucky, but he doubted it. Her favored fighting style changed often but there was no pattern to it, it just seemed to be what worked best at any given point, and her strength scores were also pretty high.

Though Harley was probably the most dangerous of them in combat Wanda was overall the most dangerous due to her superhuman abilities, but without her mind all her scores fell dramatically. She wasn’t overly skilled in combat beyond her abilities, but she was gifted at strategy, or at least enough to not get hurt until her mind healed itself enough for action. And Bruce had them all beat in the area of escape- Tony has tried some pretty impressive contraptions and the longest he’s had Bruce trapped for was fifteen minutes. He recently started employing Harley to help because her unpredictable nature just might hold Bruce in for longer and Tony was curious to see if he could catch a bat.

Tony’s own scores were only slightly above average without the suit with the exception of strategy and intelligence. His intelligence was the highest, but his recklessness was equal parts helpful and hurtful, making it fall some. He still came out smarter than everyone else, but his lower scores elsewhere made him less dangerous than his teammates. If he was as vicious as Harley he might have had better scores all around. He once watched a video in which Joker drove their car straight into a wall, causing Harley to smack off the dashboard hard enough to cause a significant amount of damage and she _still_ tried to kill Bruce as soon as she woke up. And was surprisingly successful in her efforts, even if he easily won that fight. Given that Harley should have been _dead_ that was more than a little impressive.

In the midst of calculating scores he had been some pissed to find that _Alfred_ outdid him in combat. It shouldn’t have been surprising because someone would have had to train Bruce, who was on par with Steve in his fighting abilities though neither of them were as good as Bucky. Still, an eighty-year-old man beating his ass wounded his ego. Alfred had offered to teach him, as had Harley and Bruce, so he supposed he’d improve. Most of his fighting background was boxing and Alfred informed him that boxing was too formulaic, easy to figure out if you knew what you were doing. Harley seemed intent on just doing random shit until he managed to block her, and Bruce was knowledgeable but too focused on not hurting Tony. Alfred just punched him in the face and told him that he should work on his reflexes. And start running to build stamina. Tony had informed him that his armor was considerably heavy and he used to regularly carry it around so clearly he had stamina, and Bruce had agreed though his knowledge was from something else entirely.

Alfred was horrified and left them be after that, the poor man. Harley had found that hilarious and had gone back to trying to murder Tony while Bruce looked on, looking like he pitied Tony. Yeah, Tony pitied Tony too. Harley pitied no one and looked like she was having fun watching Tony do his best to avoid getting hit in increasingly impressive ways. It helped that Harley was freakishly flexible.

Bruce breaking down a door draws his attention back to the fight and he quickly gathers what happened in the time he zoned out a little. Nothing much, really, except now the Avengers were plotting Tony’s potential demise. He’s been shut out of the comm system, Sam’s work no doubt, and Tony works on breaking back in. If Sam made the comm system he probably would have faired better against Tony given his high intelligence in that area but unfortunately for him he didn’t make the system.

“God damn it, Stark, get out of our systems!” Sam yells at him.

“Stay out of Gotham and add a ‘pretty please’ to that and I’ll consider your request,” Tony chirps.

“Screw you,” Sam mumbles as he starts tapping at his armband to try and kick Tony back out again. Tony could have shut him out but this was fun so he let Sam think he’d win if he tried hard enough. Bruce manages to make it to Penguin just as Harley bursts onto the scene and between the two of them he was pretty screwed. His scores were low in a lot of areas, but he was freakishly smart despite being overall pathetic. All in all Tony was the most impressed with him and the least impressed with Riddler. If he had to solve another goddamn riddle so that jackass would just shut his hole Tony was going to team up with Harley to break Bruce’s strict ‘no killing’ rule.

“Are the Avengers still out of my way?” Bruce asks as he manages to take Penguin down. Harley had probably broken his nose when she punched him but Tony hardly had pity for a guy who named himself ‘Penguin’. What kind of villains did Gotham even _have_? Not very good ones.

“Yeah, they’re all after a runaway Redwing,” Tony says, listening as Sam curses him out again. Bruce and Harley clean things up quickly after that and Tony greets them both happily when they get back.

*

“You should get Tony flowers,” Harley tells him, looking pleased with herself. He ignores the black and red dye that went too far down her hairline and dyed her face in favor of giving her a weird look.

“Why would I get Tony flowers?” Bruce asks, frowning.

Harley rolls her eyes, “you are so dense, Bruce. Did you not see the way he looked at my flowers? Get him some flowers and romance him a little, let him know he’s appreciated,” she says, pouting at him with no real purpose behind it.

“Tony doesn’t seem like a flower kind of guy,” Bruce says. He seemed more like the kind of guy to appreciate a car, or something electronic that he could tinker with. But flowers? They seemed oddly delicate for Tony, and not at all resilient. Bruce didn’t think they represented him well.

“Boys,” Harley says, rolling her eyes. “Just take my advice and get Tony some flowers like you’re in a normal relationship.” They weren’t in a normal relationship Bruce thinks to himself.

There were things people understood, and then there were things that could only be understood if you’ve been there. The death of a parent… that was something that was impossible to understand unless you’ve felt it, and the death of two parents was worse. Bruce never thought he’d meet someone who understood that, especially not losing them in such an unexpected and traumatic way. But Tony understood that, and he understood why it made him so distant even after all these years.

Most people thought that grief went away after a few months, that eventually things healed and you moved on. That was only partially true. You learned to move on but there were things that lingered, images and memories of a time you knew would never exist again and that weighed heavy on a person. A lot of the people he’s met, and the couple of therapists Alfred has tried, acted like his feelings were odd or out of place. Therapists liked to pathologize him and peers liked to assume he was cool and emotionally distant because of it. To be fair there was truth to both of those things, but Bruce didn’t have a mental illness and who wouldn’t be emotionally distant after something like that?

But Tony understood why he was the way he was, and even better Tony understood the Bat. People didn’t understand _Bruce_ , there was no way they’d understand his alter ego. People didn’t exactly find it within the realm or normal behavior to dress up as a bat and avenge various crimes, but Tony got it. To be fair he dressed up as a tin can and blew things up to save people so he wasn’t exactly normal either, but that was exactly what Bruce loved about Tony.

In the end he takes Harley’s advice and he buys Tony some flowers, convinced that Tony would snicker at them or something but instead Tony’s eyes light up when he sees them and he sniffs them. “These are so pretty,” Tony says, gazing lovingly at the flowers.

“I’ve always had nightmares that if I bought someone flowers and they sniffed them a bee would fly out and sting them,” Bruce says and flinches. This right here was why he limited his love life to a sex life on a pretty strict basis. That was just easier.

Tony throws back his head and laughs, “that happened to me once. I was fifteen and that date obviously did not work out. I’ve always loved flowers though, but no one has ever bought me any.”

Bruce sighs and looks at the ground, “I uh… can’t take credit, it was Harley’s idea. I didn’t think you seemed like the flower kind of person.”

Tony raises an eyebrow, “what made you think that?” he asks but he looks genuinely interested in the answer, so at least he hadn’t screwed this up somehow.

“Flowers… they’re so delicate, the fade easily. You… you’re so bright, and lively, and resilient. You’re probably the most passionate person I know, and the most caring. I’ve never seen anyone who does things the way you do, who is so _connected_ to the things they love, so involved. Most people to a task to get it done and out of the way but you don’t, you pour yourself into everything you do and whenever you go over my Batsuit designs, or some weapon, or whatever it’s like you’re giving me a little piece of you. And… and that can’t just can’t be summed up with a flower. Or a dozen,” he says, nodding at the roses Tony was holding.

That earns him a smile at least and Tony steps forward, “Bruce, they’re just something nice. They don’t need to have some deep alternative meaning or whatever. Like your Batsuit,” Tony says, snickering a little.

Bruce rolls his eyes fondly and smiles, “to be fair I was in my early twenties,” he says in his own defense.

“You haven’t lost your flair for the dramatic. And sometimes when you give someone something that seems small and meaningless to you it has a meaning to them, or you can make one. Like now- I’ve never gotten flowers before. I’ve always wanted them because I like them, but people don’t buy guys flowers. So you’re the first and no, I don’t care that Harley told you to buy them. The fact that you got them is enough for me,” he says, leaning forward into Bruce.

He wraps his arms around Tony, carefully avoiding crushing the flowers, and sighs. “You know I’ve always assumed relationships are hard. They’ve never really come easy to me- having a very good vocabulary as a child hardly helped. But you always find a way to make things so simple, which is odd because I’ve always had people tell me that I’m difficult.” Too distant, too clingy, too absorbed in his work, too involved, something was always too much with him. None of that, he thinks, made him any more able to form connections. It didn’t help that the media was also involved on constructing the image of Bruce Wayne and Wayne Enterprises. He quickly ended up with a reputation he certainly didn’t earn outside of media fiction.

“Funny, because people always told me the same thing. The fist time you told me that you were told not to screw this up I was _so_ confused. Usually _I’m_ the one being told not to mess up. It puts a lot of pressure on a person, and you already put enough pressure on yourself. You don’t need to do that with me,” Tony tells him, pulling away just enough to look up at Bruce.

It was strange, Tony Stark in person, because the media always portrayed him so large. Larger than life, really. But in person he was rather short, even if nothing else about him was small or easily contained. “I know, but it would be nice to be able to give you something personal, meaningful. I could give flowers to anyone; I _have_ given flowers to people that were meaningless to me. I don’t want to give you some generic gift that anyone could get. Not when everything you do for me is so personal.” He’d never measure up, he knew, but he at least wanted to try.

Tony smiles at him again, “it’s just tech, I did the same for the Avengers,” he points out.

“Tony, we both know technology is _so_ much more to you than mere objects you control. You take your creations very seriously; you’re very attached to them. It’s never ‘just tech’ to you, even when you were making it for the Avengers. Just because they squandered you doesn’t mean I will. Flowers just don’t live up to that example.” He wasn’t even sure he _had_ anything that could ever live up to that. Tony Stark didn’t do anything small, even gifts.

“There’s no need to live up, Bruce. And even if you did you _have_ given me several gifts like that. You don’t trust easily, and for good reason. You were hurt badly and I know better than most that attachment is far harder after pain like that. You never really get over it. But you let me in, _and_ you let me into the Batcave. That level of trust, before this, was only afforded to the one guy you’ve known you’re entire life. To allow me in like that is… is probably one of the most meaningful gifts I’ve ever gotten. And the trust that comes with it- I know how important your suit is for you even if I poke fun at it. Yet you trust me enough to make sure you’re safe in it, and mostly without question. That’s important Bruce. But I also like flowers,” Tony says, lips tilting up some.

Bruce hadn’t considered that, his Batcave and what that meant to him. He tries to imagine some of the other people he knew in his life standing in it. Maybe Detective Gordon, the police officer he met all those years ago that sort of kick started how he ended up becoming Batman instead of the man the media portrayed him as. He can’t though; because he’d never trust anyone enough to even let them know he was Batman, let alone have them help him in the process. Batman was at least half the reason he kept people at arms length these days and yet… Tony had a point.

Relationships have never come naturally to him, and once again Tony made things so much easier for him with a few simple words. He was starting to wonder if those stupid romcoms he’s always abhorred might have been right about soul mates. If they were Tony was most certainly his. No one would ever understand him like Tony does.

*

Peter sighs as Rocket tries to explain to Groot _again_ how not to blow them all up. Groot goes to reach for the death button all over again and he rolls his eyes, “I’m going to get murdered by a fucking tree,” he mumbles more to himself than anyone else.

Gamora shrugs, “better than some of the idiots we’ve dealt with lately. You’re sure about this, though?” she asks. She looks concerned, or her version of it. Gamora was tight as a clam with her emotions and most of them resulted in murder threats. Drax was similar and sometimes if Peter got bored he started fights between the two just to see who threatened to murder whom first. Usually it was Gamora, but lately Drax has been upping his threat game. The best addition to his little game was the vivid detail of each other’s deaths they’ve started to toss in. Sometimes Rocket would join with his own twisted raccoon fantasies too and Groot would make a small noise of horror and cover his little tree mouth with his little tree hands and that was just precious.

“What choice do we have? Thanos managed to break into Asgard to steal the Tesseract and the Aether. We know he has people on getting the death stone from the Nova Corps, and we also know he’s headed here with the gauntlet. We have to warn them and hope to hell it works,” he says. There was no way Terra could defend itself, they _needed_ the Guardians in ways the Nova Corps didn’t. They were at least equipped to deal with Thanos because they had more advanced technology and they actually knew what kind of threat Thanos was. Terra? Last he checked in on his home planet they had a visit from some Asgardians and the Chitauri but that hardly meant anything when Terra only escaped by the skin of its ass.

“Why Terra? Why not the Nova Corps when we know that’s where he’s headed next?” Gamora asks. She has a game plan, he knows she does, but he isn’t entirely sure what it is.

“Because Terra is the end goal. Sure, we could go to the Nova Corpse and try and help but that’s useless because Thanos won’t be there, it’ll be his goons. Thanos _will_ be here and then we have a real shot at killing him once and for all, dismantling that gauntlet, and trying to get rid of those stones to the best of our ability. That isn’t happening anywhere but here,” he says, gesturing to the bright blue planet they were closing in on.

Gamora examines him for a long moment, “good. You’re head is where it should be,” she says and straightens herself out of her slightly slouched position. “Where do we land?”

“One, what does that mean? And two, we’re landing in America. It’ll take us another two and a half hours to hit orbit, which is fine because that’s how long we’ll have to wait for America to be facing in this direction anyways.” He’s done the math, and redone the math, then had Rocket do the math for good measure. It all checked out.

“I mean I don’t want you choosing to go here because you’re feeling nostalgic about your childhood. We don’t have time for your stupid feelings; we’ve got a mass murderer to kill. No distractions,” she says somewhat harshly. She doesn’t mean to be though, she was just trained to be goal oriented and focused in ways normal people aren’t. “Make sure we land where we’re supposed to,” she tells him and she walks away.

Peter guessed he should be lucky he even got to run this ship. Gamora didn’t often care for the team dynamic, it slowed her down, but she was learning. And Peter wasn’t handing the Milano over to anyone, crazy green ex assassin that’s participated in several genocides or no.

*

Harley is perched in Bucky’s lap minding her own business; well, minding hers _and_ Bucky’s business, when some aliens rudely interrupt her.

“Hey, where are we?” the one that appeared to be the leader asks. She wonders if she’s going to have to murder some aliens tonight and Bucky is clearly wondering the same thing if his side-eyeing the aliens was any indication.

“Why do you need to know?” she asks, head tilted to the side. A quick scan of the group- was that a _raccoon_?- tells her that the green one is the most dangerous. They’re all paying attention to her, but only the green one is watching her and Bucky like she expects an attack. Next is the big and inexplicably shirtless one, but he seemed more like he was strong, not smart. That was easily dealt with. Then the leader, and Harley had no clue what to make of the raccoon. Bucky could deal with it.

“Just give us an answer,” the leader says.

“You first,” she says. She was hardly going to give aliens information without knowing what they wanted with it, that was irresponsible.

“I asked first,” the leader tells her, clearly annoyed. He looked pretty human, though she wasn’t fooled. So did Superman.

“Do you think I care about that?” she asks, head tilted to the side.

Bucky tensing under her and the green alien leaning forward some was all the information she needed to lunge. Her analysis had been right because the green alien meets her almost half way, making her a lot stronger than Harley, and faster. Shit. But Harley still manages to land on top so he had that going for her, at least until the alien reaches for her throat. Harley head butts her hard enough that she sees stars but that hardly stopped her. She was pretty used to fighting while seeing stars.

The alien was strong though and there was only so much Harley could do with that. She doges punches easily enough but the added speed also disadvantages her, at least until Bucky comes out of nowhere and kicks the alien clear across the park. “Wow, that’s cool!” she says, grinning as the big alien takes a dive at Bucky, completely ignoring Harley. His mistake because Harley snatches a gun from his belt and flits away before he can grab her, half held back by Bucky and Harley turns the gun to the leader. “Start talking,” she says in a serious tone.

Everyone stops almost immediately just like Harley figured they would. No one wanted Team Leader hurt and this was the quickest and easiest way to get information. “Put that gun down, you don’t even know how to use it!” the green alien shouts, back on the scene. Harley points it at her and she hits the ground fast so she turns it back to Team Leader, who’s hands were above his head.

“Jesus _Christ_ , what, did Terra implement a world wide martial arts lesson? You guys are on the defensive. And you’re strong. Wait… this _is_ Terra, right? Earth?” he adds when Harley frowns a little.

“Quill, if you took us to the wrong planet I will rip your spinal column out and shove it back down your throat!” the green one yells.

“I will pluck out your eyes and crush them like grapes,” the big one adds.

Harley squints at them a little but they don’t seem to actually turn on their leader because they still don’t move towards Harley or Team Leader. Bonding, maybe? Weird bonding, but maybe threatening to kill or maim people violently was some kind of alien custom? She didn’t care. “Yeah, this is earth. And you’re here _because_ …?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

Team Leader’s hands were still up in a human sign of surrender, which was curious, but his speaking caught her attention. “We’re looking for New York. And hopefully that team of uh, super people there. They’re still here, right?” he asks, casting a glance around the park. To say it was a shady area was an understatement.

“This ain’t New York but the superheroes are still around. What do you want?” she asks again.

“How are you speaking English?” Bucky asks, making a good point Harley hadn’t considered. No accents either, minus Team Leader, who actually did have a bizarre accent.

“Language modulators. Look, there’s a threat coming here and we need to talk to someone at least half qualified to deal with it. Shit, I’m half tempted to hire you two considering you managed to get the jump on us,” Team Leader says, mostly serious.

“I was adjusting to the new gravitational force here, don’t think you can win against me twice. I’ve killed species far stronger than you,” the green one all but hisses at them.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” she asks.

Team Leader gets a constipated look in his face, “I uh… didn’t think of that. But trust me, this guy is bad news and I need to talk to someone who is qualified to take on a super strong alien and also an alien army.”

Harley doesn’t offer him up any new information, which apparently pisses the big one off because he snorts. “This is ridiculous,” he says and he goes to reach for Harley but she turns and shoots him before he can finish his thoughts. A strange net thing comes out and attaches to the alien, appearing to shock him. Judging from the screaming it was painful too. It must be some weapon, she decides, if they didn’t want their leader shot with it.

“Fuck this, this planet is screwed. Let’s just g-“ Harley shoots the raccoon before it finishes its sentence.

“Hey!” Team Leader yells, “you can’t just _shoot_ people!”

“What? That’s a talking animal, I think it might be a little messed up; you might want to put it down. I was just helping you out, really,” she says, shrugging unrepentantly. Behind her Bucky snickers softly.

“That’s not just a raccoon, he’s like a person and you _shot_ him!” the Team Leader says like it was surprising that she shot a raccoon that _spoke_.

“Well I don’t know what you know about earth but raccoons ain’t normal so yeah I shot it, what else was I supposed to do?” Obviously it had to go. That was just common sense and if the aliens didn’t know that then that was their problem.

“Look, we need to speak to someone about the incoming threat. Trust me, I have absolutely _zero_ desire to be here otherwise. But Thanos is coming and we don’t have time to bicker! _Please_ ,” the green alien says, pleading almost.

Harley shrugs, “okay,” she says and Team Leader is stupid enough to drop his hands and sigh in relief.

“Thank go-“ he starts, his words getting cut off by the green alien’s screams as Harley shoots one of those electric nets at her. Team Leader’s reflexes need work because she shoots him next and he goes down yelling like the rest of his team.

“So uh, what do we do with them?” Bucky asks, walking over and subtly checking her over for wounds. At least he thinks he’s subtle anyways.

“We call Bruce and Tony. They’ll know what to do,” she says. As she pulls her phone out she feels a tug on her pant leg and looks down to find a small… tree?

“I am Groot!” the little tree yells at her, looking adorably angry.

“Aww, look at the little guy!” she says and Bucky all but shoves her out of the way.

“It could be poisonous,” he says in his own defense.

“I am _Groot_!” the little tree yells at Bucky.

“You said that already,” Bucky tells the tree and Harley dials Tony. He was more likely to be near his phone than Bruce, who tended to be near a window so he could see the Bat signal if he needed to.

“Hello?” Tony asks, sounding somewhat flustered.

Harley hopes she’s interrupted what she thinks she’s interrupted. “Tell Bruce to put on his suit and get to the park, we’ve got a problem,” she says in a perky tone.

“Yeah, I’m sure it can wait,” Tony says, sounding annoyed.

“Well, I mean the aliens are unconscious but I don’t know how long they’ll stay that way so if ya wanna probe ‘em get down here. Think they’ll be freaked out that _we’re_ probing _them_?” she asks more to herself than Tony.

“I _am_ Groot!” the little tree yells, marching a whole two steps towards Harley before Bucky scoops it off the ground. “I am Groot! _I_ am Groot!” it yells, wiggling around to no avail. Bucky giggles at it and its arm grows a little and slaps Bucky in the face. Harley can’t help but let out a loud peal of laughter as Bucky gives the tree an offended look. “ _I am Groot_!” the tree yells, arm poised to slap again.

“I’ll be right there,” Tony says in a much more serious tone and the line drops.

“So,” Harley says a moment later, “ever had a make out session interrupted by aliens before?” she asks Bucky. He had told her who he was earlier in the night but he used the Winter Solider first, trying to prove some point about how bad he was. She told him she was Harley Quinn so he was hardly in better company. _And_ he notice and liked her new hair. J never noticed when she dyed her hair.

Bucky grins, “can’t say I have. Never watched a girl take down a team of them either, you’ve got skills,” he says.

“Sure do. But that green one woulda had my ass if it wasn’t for you so thanks,” she says.

“No problem,” Bucky says back, shrugging.

“I am Groot!” the little tree yells.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, my initial plan for this chapter was to introduce Superman but instead I wrote a whole other thing. So I guess we meet Superman next chapter! And then for me to work in Flash characters...

“I am Groot!” the tree yells and Tony stops and turns around.

“What did you just say?” he asks the tree. Bruce heard it pretty clear and Tony was closer, but he did hit his head the other day so maybe he was still feeling it…

“I am Groot,” the tree says in a calmer tone.

“Go on,” Tony says, stepping towards the tree.

It perks up some and leans towards Tony, “I am Groot! I am Groot. I am Groot. I am Groot,” the tree says, repeating the phrase several more times but for some reason Tony is entranced.

“He uh… apparently there’s some big bad alien after us and these guys were here to warn us,” Tony says mostly to Bruce. He seems to be ignoring Harley entirely since he saw her, but that might be because of who is beside her. Another Avenger, Bruce guessed but he’s never seen this one before and he was pretty sure he’s seen them all. Even the android one Tony was somewhat fond of.

“All I head was ‘I am Groot’. Are you… hearing something different?” Bruce asks, confused.

Tony shakes his head, “no, but I’ve been interpreting the bots for years. I know my noises and this little guy probably isn’t lying. He’s pretty worried about his friends here, especially that ratty looking coon over there. Honestly I think we might need animal control…” he says, wrinkling his nose at the unconscious animal.

“It _speaks_ ,” Harley says to them, looking disturbed. Tony doesn’t even acknowledge that she’s spoken, which is more than a little strange.

“I am Groot!” the tree yells at Tony, waving it’s arms around.

“Okay, okay, no animal control. But you better hope your friends tell the same story you do or this isn’t going to be pretty. Come on,” Tony says to the tree. He looks surprised when the tree takes that as an opportunity to climb up Tony’s pant leg and torso until he’s perched on his shoulder but he doesn’t look nearly as grim as he did when he got Harley’s call. Bruce wonders why Tony trusts the tree, and even more so how the hell he understood that thing. But Bruce trusts Tony so they gather the aliens and head off to the Batcave.

*

“You know I used to like it here but now I think you’re a bunch of dicks,” Peter Quill says, glaring at Tony. Tough titty, he thinks, because it was his fault for showing up here unannounced yelling about some alien coming for them. He did give the same story Groot did so there was that. Actually all of them gave the same story minus Drax, who threated to kill Tony at least six times. Eventually he told the same story the others did, albeit with several more threats throughout his explanation.

“Whose fault is that?” Tony asks him, earning a snort out of Barnes but he ignores it. That… that was something for another time. Right now he had more pressing issues than the guy who killed his parents hanging out in the Batcave with Harley, who looked way too attached. That was also another issue for another time when he wasn’t questioning aliens and gauging an invasion.

“Uh, yours. I didn’t stick me in a cage and question me for hours,” Quill says.

Tony snorts, “you did show up out of nowhere yelling about aliens, what the hell did you think we were going to do? Pamper you?” And that wasn’t even considering that they _are_ aliens, which made their story less believable.

“I am Groot,” Groot says, hands on his little tree hips looking upset with this whole thing.

“You tell him, Groot. Quill, I told you before and I’ll tell you again- this planet is fucked and we should leave them all to die. Then we can take cover in the far reaches of the universe and hope Thanos doesn’t kill us,” Rocket says. The fact that Tony has witnessed a fucking talking raccoon on top of aliens was just all the weirder.

Tony bends down to Groot’s level, “I know that they confirmed your story, but I still need to check that everything is true,” he says gently. Groot huffs at him but seems to accept this, if a little annoyed about it.

“Are you just accepting this?” Rocket asks Groot, who nods. “You are a damn traitor, I hope you know that. Also how come _he_ doesn’t get a cage?” Rocket asks Tony.

“He’s a tree, he’ll just grow out of it. And I like him more than all of you,” Tony says. It wasn’t that he didn’t have eyes on Groot at all times, he did, and FRIDAY was gathering all the data he told her to get for him. And the hastily made containment units were also gathering information on the aliens in them though none of them seemed intent on breaking out when Tony knew that Drax and Gamora could easily bust out of theirs. It made them at least slightly more trustable.

“Okay I hate to break the news to you but by the time you have sufficient evidence we’re all going to be fucked,” Quill tells him. Tony ignores him because the dinging sound from the elevator informed him that Bruce had arrived back and that was more interesting than his rather boring collection of aliens. FRIDAY couldn’t even _match_ Quill to any kind of alien she managed to find on human record and on one of the devices he swiped off Rocket. He did, however, know that Quill was half human not that the information was particularly useful.

Bruce ignores Quill in favor of going over to Tony to kiss him before moving to the small station Tony had built for himself that connected to all of Bruce’s systems. It was far more integrated than the earlier incarnations of the system thankfully, and allowed for faster access to information for both Bruce and Tony. “That’s new,” Quill says, drawing a confused look from Bruce but Tony catches his drift right away.

“What do you mean ‘new?’ How’d you know humans weren’t exactly accepting of same sex couples?” he asks, squinting at Quill suspiciously. Quill rolls his eyes at him.

“I’m half human, dumbass, I know your creepy AI thing picked up on that,” Quill says.

“FRIDAY is not creepy!” Tony says in his AI’s defense.

“Thank you, sir,” FRIDAY says in response. She was getting better with human interaction even if she was still stiff. It was to be expected with a fledgling system but all things considered she was doing well. She had even bonded with Vision some, which had helped her out considerably. Vision didn’t get human things either and FRIDAY was an AI that only simulated what Tony decided was coded emotions. They weren’t _real_ in a human sense, much like Vision before that whole Wanda and shooting Rhodey out of the sky accidentally. FRIDAY had managed to generate her own sad code at the loss of a friend who understood her, which meant she was learning emotions in her own AI way so she still had more in common with Vision than she thought.

And she was not _creepy_. She’s an extremely intelligent AI system that could pretty much think on her own, in a manner of speaking. That was _brilliant_ , not creepy.

“But back to the subject at hand- being half human only means that at some point your mother came into sexual contact with an alien, not that you should know anything about the planet or the culture,” Tony points out. He had found out the hard way that only Quill spoke English- the rest were using some kind of language mod to translate from their native tongues. Tony was _so_ looking into that later.

“Where the hell do you think I was born?” Quill asks, rolling his eyes again.

“I really don’t like this one,” Bruce says, glaring at Quill. Tony half smiles, somewhat pleasantly surprised at Bruce’s protectiveness even if it wasn’t at all needed.

“I assumed elsewhere but seems how that isn’t true mind filling me in on apparent alien invasions that humans _don’t_ know about?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

He can see Quill’s regret from across the room and he swears softly. “Look, I don’t know much because my mom wasn’t exactly… open about things. All I know is that my dad crashed here sometime in the late sixties and she found him and took care of him. And uh, well, here I am! I lived here until I was nine, then I got kidnapped by some aliens who wanted to eat me,” he says.

Tony wrinkles his nose at that and Harley makes a retching noise, apparently agreeing with him wordlessly. “So ask your mom what the hell happened,” Tony says, doing the math fast enough to know she’d be old, but not so old that she’d be useless.

Quill licks his lips and steps back from the wall of his cell, “yeah uh, I’d love to but she’s dead. She died right before I was kidnapped,” he says and you couldn’t fake emotion like that. Quill sniffs softly and looks away, clearly trying to hide his feelings both from Tony and his colleagues.

“You did not tell us that,” Drax says, looking somewhat troubled as he took a step closer to Quill.

“None of you asked,” Quill says in a somewhat short tone. Everyone on his team, even Rocket, reacted to their leader’s emotional response with demure body language and silent support, the kind you only got from people who knew you well and cared about your well-being. It was also the sort of connection that four people and a tree couldn’t fake, not like that.

“Great. So aliens have been coming and going from here for some time, then. So why try and take it over now, aside from the infinity stones? This… Thanos, he seems to be pretty widely feared already so why bother wiping out another planet? Seems senseless,” Tony says, trying to figure out exactly what this Thanos person had planned.

“Sense is not something Thanos has much of. To him destroying a planet needs no reason; he would do it for no reason at all. But Terra is also central to the universe so strategically it is a good place to rule the universe from so I suspect that has something to do with it,” Gamora tells them. She doesn’t look impressed with this and Tony had no idea why, aside from Quill none of them had connections here and it sounded like Quill’s connections were long gone.

“Why try and save us if it could get you killed?” Tony asks, arms crossed.

“Because this idiot,” Rocket says, pointing at Quill, “got sentimental about this shitty planet.”

“I am Groot!” Groot says to Rocket, little arms on his hips.

“Yeah, yeah,” Rocket mumbles, “and it’s the right thing to do.”

*

Harley had long ago noticed Tony’s sudden frostiness with her, and Bucky’s awkwardness in Wayne Manor and she was determined to get to the bottom of it. It wasn’t because Bucky had connections to the Avengers; Tony was never this chilly when discussing any of them. Usually he was almost sad that things hadn’t gone well between them all, maybe even a little nostalgic. But with Bucky Tony flat out ignored his presence, and Harley’s for some reason. Bruce seemed to recognize this and he kept his distance from Bucky in an attempt not to piss Tony off.

“I have a plan,” she tells Bruce, hoping that she managed to sneak up on him but he doesn’t jump or otherwise react like she caught him off guard.

“I’ve looked into Barnes,” Bruce tells her, turning to face her with a plate of food in his hand.

“You suck the fun out of everything,” she tells him, pouting. “Tell me what you find and when I talk to Bucky I’ll tell you what I found and we can figure out this Tony thing,” she says.

Bruce nods, “good. He’s very on edge with the aliens let along Barnes and I’m worried about him.” He admits that last bit just a tad quieter than the rest and Harley sighs.

“Everyone with functioning senses can tell, Bruce. Go feed him and tell him he’s pretty and I’ll go talk to Bucky,” she says, patting Bruce on the shoulder and heading off to find Bucky.

It takes longer than she expected but she does eventually track him to the farthest part of the manor, as far from Tony as he can get she thinks to herself. “What’s the deal with you and Tony?” she asks, throwing herself onto Bucky’s bed and raising an eyebrow at him expectantly.

He looks back at her, lowering the book he was reading. Brave New World. A quick glance at the pile of books beside him revealed that dystopian was a preference. Hmm. “I… look, there are things that you don’t know about me,” he says, drawing his legs closer to himself.

Receding into himself because he was uncomfortable with the topic. More accurately he was uncomfortable with his past, and with Harley knowing about it. “We all do stuff we aren’t proud of. Trust me, I have my fair share of mistakes,” she says honestly. There was _so_ much of her life she wished she could take back now, but that was the thing with actions. Once they were out there you couldn’t take them back.

Bucky fidgets uncomfortably, “I think I might have more things I’m not proud of than you do,” he says quietly.

Harley throws back her head and laughs, “oh you heroes are so dramatic, beating yourselves up over silly little things like running a program and getting unexpected results,” she says, thinking of that Ultron robot thing Tony couldn’t seem to let go of. Stupid decision or not he couldn’t have anticipated the results of that. Not like she did anyways- she chose her actions to cause maximum damage for the fun of it.

“I’m not a hero,” Bucky says, annoyed with the comment.

“Well you’re no villain. You know what they say; it takes one to know one and all that. Trust me, I’ve spent a long time as a super villain, I know what they look like and I know their psychology. You don’t fit, so what’s the deal?” she asks, looking to get to the bottom of this.

Bucky remains silent for a few long moments before he speaks. “You remember when I told you about being the Winter Soldier? How much do you _know_ about the Winter Soldier?” he asks slowly, carefully.

Harley shrugs, “not much. The last few years has mostly been me blowing banks up in Gotham and kicking Bruce’s ass,” she says honestly. And boy did he put up a good fight, far better than most. His ability to escape impossible decisions was unparalleled as well. It was annoying.

“I uh… the Winter Soldier was a HYDRA thing,” he says softly.

“You worked for Nazis? Okay, you might be a little bit worse than me. Why though? Your Steve doesn’t seem fond of HYDRA,” she points out. And Steve was important to Bucky, important enough that he constantly felt like he’d never live up to the shining image of Steve Rogers. No wonder he felt that way.

“I didn’t really have a choice. I fell from a train in the forties, I’m sure you’re familiar with all that shit. It was HYDRA that found me and they um… by the time they were done there wasn’t really much of me left, but I kept coming back. They had to keep giving me electroshock therapy to try and keep me complacent but recently that training broke enough for me to make an escape. At least until this Civil War thing,” he mumbles. He didn’t look impressed with being flushed out- a terrorist attack he got blamed for Harley thinks- which makes her wonder why he stuck around. Why not just run back into the woodwork? That was a question for another day though.

“So… you didn’t work for Nazis then. Well congrats, I’m officially worse again. What’s that got to do with Tony though?” she asks. His father hadn’t been fond of HYDRA, which Tony inherited, but other than that vague connection Harley didn’t see a reason for Tony’s obvious distaste for Bucky.

Bucky frowns at her, “what do you mean I didn’t work for Nazis, I just told you I did,” he says.

“No, you told me that you were tortured into complying. I used to be a shrink Bucky; I know what torture can do to a person. Also I’ve tortured people, making them do what you want isn’t hard when you make them hurt. That doesn’t count, and I still don’t see how Tony is involved,” she says, raising an eyebrow.

For a long moment she thinks Bucky is going to fight her on her stance on his actions but he seems to let it go for now. “I killed his parents as the Winter Soldier and he didn’t know until Zemo played a tape of it. And I guess Steve knew and didn’t say anything,” Bucky says and his features change a little at that. He almost looked like he disapproved.

Having solved her mystery Harley zeroes in on Bucky’s disapproval of his friend, curious to see what made the man fail at least in that circumstance to Bucky. “You don’t look like you agree with that, Steve not saying anything,” she clarifies.

Bucky shakes his head, “I don’t. And I don’t know why he did it. I know he claims it was to protect me from Tony but he only attacked me _after_ Steve lied to him about knowing and then told the truth about knowing. That’s just so unlike him,” Bucky says, frowning.

“How so?” Harley asks, slipping into her old role as a doctor easily enough.

“Steve… he always does the right thing, _always_. No matter the cost to him or his friends because he’s always been more interest in justice than his own self-preservation, or the preservation of his friends. So he should have told Tony about what I did because that was the right thing to do, and I don’t understand why he didn’t,” Bucky says.

He looks confused but Harley isn’t. People change, and in this particular incident Steve Rogers took a turn for the selfish. It shouldn’t surprise Bucky so much that the man was human; of course he was going to make stupid mistakes. The real question was why she got the feeling that only Bucky saw the change.

*

Tony wasn’t sure when the information clicked with Bruce given that he’s heard the story before, but when he picked up on Bucky being the same Bucky who killed his parents he had been pretty intent on getting him out of the house. Tony had no idea why he protested that but Bruce hadn’t been impressed with it. And then, somewhat unsurprisingly, Bucky had caused problems in yet another one of his personal relationships.

A knock on his door caught his attention and he turns towards it to find Alfred standing there. “May I come in?” he asks, less stiff with Tony than he has been in the past. It seemed the butler was warming up to his presence here.

“Sure,” Tony says, not really caring. He figured the butler would say his piece and then he’d go do whatever, presumably to talk Bruce into getting rid of Tony.

Alfred enters and sits on the bed in the center of the room slowly. “I am not going to pretend to understand why you defended Barnes’ presence here, but I figured I would give you some help on how to deal with Bruce,” he says, pausing for a moment while Tony processed that.

He had assumed Alfred was going to tell him off or something and instead he got… whatever this was. “You have to understand,” Alfred says, drawing his attention back to him, “that for Bruce loosing his parents was the most traumatic thing to have ever happen to him. From that moment on Bruce was someone different for better or for worse. I like to think for better. Regardless, that moment has shaped everything he has done since then, coloring every action and reaction he has ever had. For you to not only accept but _defend_ the presence of your parents’ killer in a house he views as space you are entitled to… he doesn’t understand that. And I’m afraid that is something he will never understand,” Alfred tells him.

Which was fine by Tony, he knew very well what Bruce’s parents’ deaths did to him. It made him into the worst dressed super hero ever. Tony likes to think Bruce’s parents would be proud of who he became, even if he was pretty certain that they’d disapprove of Bruce’s unorthodox methods of nearly getting killed at least twice a week. “Well, it’s his house. He’s free to kick Barnes out, I’m not stopping him.” At this point Tony wasn’t even sure if he could bring himself to defend Barnes again so Bruce was free to do what he wanted.

“He won’t,” Alfred says.

Tony frowns, “why not? I’d understand, probably more than understand.” He’d be grateful really, especially considering that he wasn’t even sure _why_ he defended Bucky.

Alfred stands up and places a hand on Tony’s shoulder, “out of respect for you and your wishes, even if he has no understanding of why you would ever defend Barnes,” he says. “Now, I will see you tomorrow at eight a.m sharp to train, _not_ eleven thirty,” Alfred tells him very seriously, leaving then.

He watches Alfred go and stands there by himself for a few minutes before he goes to find Bruce. When he does he hugs him tightly, catching him by surprise though Bruce thaws fast. It wasn’t often, or even _ever_ , that someone listened to Tony out of respect. People only ever listened to him because they hated him, feared him, or wanted to be him. Respect was almost never part of the equation.

Bruce circles his arms around Tony and holds him tight like this was the last time he was ever going to see Tony and hell, knowing what they knew maybe it was. Tony holds him back too, happy that at least for a short period of time he got to be with someone that actually understood him on every level, even if it was going to be ruined by aliens. It had been Tony’s fear for so long, but at least now he’d face it with more support and preparation than the last time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy introduction to Clark!

Tony wasn’t impressed about it, and Bruce even less so, but they called an emergency meeting with the Avengers to deal with this alien thing. And Tony, because he was a petty asshole, told Peter _all_ about how they knew about the aliens forever ago.

Quill stares at them all for a solid thirty seconds before he speaks, “you know about the aliens _years_ ago?” he asks, eyebrows flying up in a mix of surprise and shock.

Steve glares at Tony for a moment, prompting Bruce to shuffle closer to him. “No, we did _not_ know about the aliens years ago. We were just invaded years ago,” he says, gaze still on Tony.

“Really, so I _haven’t_ been warning you about aliens for the last several years? Odd, I though that was at least seventy percent of my motivation for Ultron. The other thirty percent goes to Wanda mind fucking me and _why_ has no one dealt with that? I feel like there should have been a discussion about the one time she mind fucked us all so bad that Bruce ran off, we both accidentally created a genocidal murder bot, and the rest of you saw your worst fears. Oh, and lets not forget that mine actually _was_ a prophecy so I guess thanks for that Wanda,” Tony mumbles, rolling his eyes.

The Guardians of the Galaxy, because they were far more dramatic than even Tony, all stare in shock. Rocket speaks first though, “alright, pack it up, lets go. These idiots aren’t going to be able to deal with Thanos so we should go with my plan of _running the hell away_ ,” he says. Groot gasps a little, obviously offended at this suggestion and Rocket flips him off. Which was _so_ weird to see.

“How do you accidentally create a genocidal murder bot?” Drax asks, frowning at Tony.

“You’ve known about aliens for _years_ and no one thought to like… fortify the place? What the hell!” Peter yells, waving his arms around.

“Drax, Bruce- another colleague, not this Bruce,” Tony says, gesturing to Bruce, “and I ran a program to see if an autonomous AI was possible but thanks to some unforeseen consequences the AI built itself, killed my other AI, and then tried to kill the world. And Peter, I’ve been trying to warn people for years but the last time I did that the entire team literally rolled their eyes at me,” he says, annoyed with that still.

“Excuse me they _what_?” Bruce asks, looking down at Tony with a _very_ unimpressed look on his face. Ohh, the Avengers were in shit now.

“Before Ultron I told them that an alien invasion was endgame, I _saw_ the Chitauri army assembling and I didn’t need to be a genius to know what that meant. And they rolled their eyes like they do pretty much every time I speak. You all wonder why I’m not a team player and then pull shit like that. I _really_ don’t understand that,” Tony says, shaking his head and walking off before he did or said something he’d regret.

“Let me be clear, the only reason you are in my house is because I have a use for your powers. After this don’t expect to be welcome on Gotham,” Tony hears Bruce snarl on his way out and he smiles, happy that at least someone stuck up for him.

Bruce tells him later that Peter spent a solid twenty minutes yelling about aliens, which at least made him laugh.

*

Rocket was _not_ happy about staying and he had no qualms about leaving either but Groot was insistent that they stay and he trusted Groot even if he didn’t trust anyone else. But he needed to figure out what Stark knew seems how he was the only idiot around here that had any sense. “Tell your bot to calm its shit, you’ll be done with Bruce’s bat crap in a minute and then you can look at its art or whatever,” he says, annoyed with the bot’s insistent beeping almost immediately.

But then he’s been told he had a short temper. Tony whirls around in surprise, as does the bot, “wait, you know what Dummy was saying?” he asks.

“Yeah, the damn thing wouldn’t shut up. Does no one else understand it?” he asks.

“I am Groot,” Groot says, informing him that no, the bots were like him. Only one person in the world understood them and didn’t that just tug at his stupid heartstrings. He sighs and leans against the nearest solid object.

“Okay look, I need to know what you know because right now you’re the only dumbass around here who knows anything about anything and I’m damn skeptical because you’re sleeping with a dude who dresses up like a bat and punches criminals. Guy’s got issues,” Rocket says.

Tony snorts, “to be honest I don’t know much more that what I already told you. I saw the army and ever since I’ve been on edge,” he says.

“Good, that means you’ll survive all this. Your little friends on the other hand? Ten bucks says Captain Frisbee dies in ten seconds flat. You know anything else alien-wise?” he asks.

Tony shakes his head, “no, all I’ve got is some scraps of information from a few government agencies that I’ve hacked and even they haven’t given me much,” he admits.

Rocket shrugs and climbs that robot thing- dummy he guessed- to get on eye level with Stark. “Great, show me what you’ve got,” he says as the bot’s claw spins in annoyance and it lets out several annoyed beeps. “Oh shut your hole, I’m helping your owner out a little, show some respect,” he tells it.

That earns him a small laugh from Stark as he starts typing away at his keyboard. In the meantime Rocket looks up at the huge screen in front of him and frowns. “Hey Stark, the hell is _that_?” he asks, watching some dumbass in blue spandex shoot _lasers_ out of his eyes.

Stark looks up and shrugs, “no one knows but it’s clear he’s enhanced,” he says.

“Uh, think he might be more than that but I’m gunna need Gamora’s expertise because Kryptonians? They’re extinct.” And what one was doing here playing hero Rocket had no clue, nor did he have any idea how the hell it got here.

*

“Do we _have_ to do this?” Bruce mumbles in Tony’s ear.

“If you want to appear normal, then yes,” Tony tells him. He hardly had any desire to be at some bullshit gala knowing that aliens were about to come and kill them all but he didn’t have much of a choice if he intended on keeping Bruce’s façade up. Bruce huffs but he doesn’t say anything aside from a few greetings to Gotham’s richest.

There were more than a few comments on Tony’s presence, something Tony warned Bruce about, but he had insisted that he was tired of keeping his relationship with Tony a secret and invited him along. Tony went because he was selfish enough to paint a target on Bruce’s back just for bringing him. But it felt nice to be wanted for once so here he was even if it was probably a really stupid thing to do.

What Tony doesn’t expect is for a reporter to run smack into him. Experience in literally running into super people tips him off but it’s the face that does it. “Sorry, sorry, I really should watch where I’m going but- oh, Mr. Wayne. I was looking for you, actually,” the reporter says, smiling pleasantly at Bruce. Tony squints because there was _no way_ this was happening… it just wasn’t logical.

Bruce pulls out a publicity smile and starts talking to the reporter- Clark- and Tony Googles that video of Superman from earlier today because this _had_ to be some kind of mistake. It takes a moment for him to get a clear shot of Superman’s face but when he does he squints at it and then at Clark and back to his phone again.

“How stupid do you think people are?” he asks, interrupting Bruce’s and Clark’s conversation. From the look he gets from both of them they were in a heated discussion and they weren’t pleased with his interruption.

“Excuse me?” Clark asks, playing the confused bit well Tony would admit.

“Glasses? _That’s_ your disguise?” he says, raising an eyebrow.

Clark lets out a nervous laugh, “I… _what_?” he asks, head tilted to the side.

“Aww, you’re playing the lovable idiot. Well give it up, I know what you are,” he snaps.

“Tony, _what_ are you talking about?” Bruce asks, frowning at Tony.

“He’s Superman!” Tony says, shocked that Bruce even had to _ask_. The resemblance was uncanny, the only difference was that there was no ‘Superman’ curl (what the hell even _was_ that?) and he was wearing glasses. People seriously weren’t that stupid, as if _glasses_ worked as a disguise. He knew they didn’t because he’s _tried_ that.

Bruce laughs a little, exchanging an amused look with Clark before he sobers a little, “wait, are you serious? _Clark_?” Bruce asks, giving Clark a doubtful once over.

“I’m fairly certain I’m too clumsy to be Superman,” Clark says.

“Or you’re a good actor. Again, how stupid do you think people are?” he asks.

Clark tilts his head to the side, “don’t you have a history of insomnia? I think you might need some sleep,” he says with an irritatingly concerned look on his face.

“I don’t need sleep, you need to fess up,” Tony snaps.

“Tony, I think he might be right. You’ve been under a lot of stress lately,” Bruce says sympathetically and Tony throws up his hands in frustration.

“ _Seriously_?” he asks. It was so _obvious_. The guy thought _glasses_ could hide his identity for Christ’s sake!

“I can catch up with you later about that article,” Clark says, giving Bruce one of those nice wholesome smiles that made Tony want to smack him.

“That might for the best,” Bruce says.

“So long as you don’t spend the next three weeks dodging me again, Mr. Wayne.” His smile slips a little and Tony recognizes that reporter look, the one they got when they sensed they were onto something. That annoyed Tony because the guy had a perfectly good story about him being a _super powered alien_ and apparently whatever Bruce was doing was more interesting. Barring finding out that he was Batman there was nothing more interesting than _himself_ and even that was pushing it. Batman’s identity might be a scoop but being an _alien_ was bigger than that.

“Sure, Clark. I’ll see you later,” Bruce says and he does his best to try and steer Tony away but Tony turns around.

“This is not over _Clark_ ,” he says.

Clark tilts his head to the side, “is saying my name like that supposed to mean something?” he asks. Bruce pulls him away before he responds to that, unfortunately.

*

Bucky clenches his jaw and looks at Steve, “is all of that true? About Tony?” he asks. He isn’t sure why he needs to know, _what_ he needs to know even.

Steve sighs and rolls his eyes but Bucky’s pretty sure it’s unconscious. “Look Bucky, there’s a lot you don’t know okay?”

“Like what?” he asks. He wants to leave it but there’s this uncomfortable feeling that has settles in his stomach and he doesn’t like it.

“Bucky,” Steve says like he’s trying to explain something complicated but Bucky didn’t know what was so complicated here. “He’s… he’s reckless okay, none of us thought anything of it. He’s sort of always talking out his ass.”

“He’s… _reckless_?” Bucky asks, floored that this criticism was coming from _Steve_ of all people.

“Yeah Bucky, he’s reckless, and he doesn’t exactly do well in a team setting, and he’s pretty damn annoying sometimes.” He’s frustrated, Bucky can tell, but he isn’t exactly getting why.

“That’s total bullshit Steve. I’ve _watched_ him work in a team setting, he does fine. Better than fine actually he keeps scrambling you and the Avengers around. And _reckless_? Coming from the guy who agreed t be injected with an experimental German serum that could have killed him and then proceeded to jump into a war with next to no training just to save a friend is a _joke_. And since when is being annoying a reason to do that to someone?” he asks, shocked more than anything.

“Do _what_ to someone, Bucky? All we did was not listen to what sounded like paranoid rants,” Steve says.

Bucky frowns, not sure if he even recognized the person in front of him. “No, you rolled your eyes at him. And he was _right_ Steve, he was _right_.”

“And now I know that so this is my mistake,” Steve says, admitting his mistake with more grace than Bucky realized he expected. It wasn’t often he didn’t expect much out of Steve, he realizes, because Steve always surpassed expectations he never realized he had.

“You believed me,” he says softly.

“That’s different,” Steve says quickly, looking concerned.

Bucky shakes his head, “why? Because you don’t find me irritating? Because you’re actually friends with me? When I told you about those Winter Soldiers Sam right away said that Tony isn’t to be trusted, you obviously didn’t have faith in him either. And he was right to look for more information; I couldn’t even trust my own mind let alone anyone else trusting it. You didn’t even tell him about his _parents_ Steve?”

Bruce hadn’t been impressed when he found out about that and he’s been giving Bucky more than the cold shoulder. Tony has been understandably avoiding him too, but Harley was also left in the cold and Bucky didn’t know how to deal with that. None of this was her fault but he’d never be enough of an asshole to tell Tony that. He’s done enough the man; he wasn’t going to act like he knew more about how his personal relationships worked too.

“Why are you so upset about this? It doesn’t concern you,” Steve says and Bucky can’t help but think he has a point, at least until he realizes why this has been bothering him so much.

“Because it’s so cruel,” he says suddenly. “I’ve never known you to be cruel before, not even out of self-preservation. You’ve always done the right thing, even if it hurt you to do it that’s _why_ you volunteered for Erskine. Because you’re a good person but this… you don’t roll your eyes at someone who’s in pain, Steve, what is _wrong_ with you? I don’t know the first thing about Stark and even _I_ can see how wound up he is about these aliens, how could you have missed it?” He didn’t miss it, Bucky knows, he just didn’t care and that cut deep.

Steve Rogers is a good man, he always has been, but Bucky wasn’t so sure this was Steve Rogers at all. The Steve he knew would never roll his eyes at someone like that, not when it was obvious that Tony saw something that scared him to his core. His Steve would have helped because _that’s_ who Steve was.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! Christ having a full time job is time consuming and I've only had the damn thing for four days. The good news is that I think I'm bumped down to part time after training, though remaining full time would result in a sweet pay day. The bad news is that I have a coworker that makes me want to strangle her with her own hair and worse.
> 
> Anyways updates on this sucker will be weird for an indefinite period of time (probably until it's either done or September), but I will update semi regularly!

“Have you ever been away from your Steve for a long period of time?” Harley asks Bucky because she was starting to wonder. Bucky was always on about ‘Steve this, Steve that’ and it was obviously bothering him that Steve was not the man he used to be. Seventy years have passed though, Bucky expecting Steve to be the same was the same as Steve expecting Bucky to be the same. Both of them have failed each other, but both of them had too high of expectations.

Bucky shrugs, “no, not since we were kids. We lived on the same street and in my time the world didn’t seem so large,” Bucky says.

It was even larger if aliens were considered and that just boggled Harley’s mind. _Aliens_ were real. That was just wild and this was coming from a girl who got pushed into a vat of toxic waste and came out with super powers of sorts. “Well,” she says, “maybe you should consider that when time passes people, they change. We might not want ‘em to, but they do. We change too and you’re both upset that you weren’t who you used to be _seventy years ago_. That doesn’t even _touch_ on all the stuff you guys have gone through,” she points out.

Hell, she didn’t even have anything happen to her before she was tossed into that toxic waste and she had been completely different than when she first started her job at Arkham. And then everything else happened after that and there was no going back, except that one time as a patient. But she knew her coworkers well and sent them all in circles. She was never going to let someone else into her head again, not after the last time.

“I know it’s just… when you know things about a person you sort of expect them to act that way. I figured Steve would have changed, of _course_ he would have, I did. But rolling your eyes at someone talking about a really scary thing that happened to them? That’s horrible, Harley. That isn’t like him at all,” Bucky says, shaking his head. “He’s a good person, he shouldn’t have done that.”

Harley shrugs, “good people do bad things, Bucky,” she tells him softly. She knew better than anyone how that worked. She’s seen it over and over again and it never got anymore pleasant. Plus she’s been there herself. Though she supposed these days she wasn’t sure she was ever a good person, or maybe she was and it was worked out of her slowly. Or maybe, and she didn’t like to think about this, maybe she was a bad person the whole time and she was only pretending to be good. Like her father had been.

“So people keep telling me,” Bucky says but Harley knows she isn’t talking about Steve anymore.

“It wasn’t you know, your fault I mean. You hurt someone enough they do whatever you tell ‘em to. I’ve done it,” she says. And she’s had it happen to her too, but not for some time. At a certain point torture didn’t work when you stopped feeling the pain of it. Tony has commented more than once that she could withstand a lot, more than any baseline even if she didn’t technically qualify for being enhanced, and she wondered how much of that was a physical ability to withstand more or a mental barrier that prevented her from noticing.

Bucky looks away, obviously uncomfortable and Harley starts to wonder if she’s revealed too much even if it was all public knowledge but then he speaks. “You ever enjoyed it?” he asks softly.

Shame, she knows, from feeling pleasure in someone else’s suffering. “All the time, how else could I have been a villain? I still wanna hurt people more then help them but Bruce looks down on that kind of thing so I mostly curb it until I can give a good punch to whoever he’d trying to fight this time.” It still wasn’t enough to scratch that itch but she knew full well Bruce wouldn’t trust her to go do hero things on her own and he was right to. She’d probably be like that Erik Lehnsherr guy she kept hearing about.

Her words come as a shock to Bucky and his eyes widen, “really?” he asks.

She shrugs, “yeah. I mean who doesn’t want to hurt someone at some point in their life? Everyone has come across someone they’ve wanted to hurt; actually enjoying hurting them is kind of a natural progression. I mean normal people probably wouldn’t actually hurt someone, but they still take pleasure in other’s pain. When I was in med school my roommate was happy one of her coworkers got fired, it’s the same principal but people feel less bad about it because _they_ didn’t cause the pain. But you did, so you feel guilty,” she says. That was also a natural progression. When a person doesn’t like someone it’s pretty natural to want them to suffer, to even take pleasure in their suffering like her old roommate did, but people also tended to feel guilty about it if the situation wasn’t something they should be taking pleasure in.

Bucky frowns, “I don’t feel guilty. A lot of those people deserved what I did to them, some deserved far worse than what they got. It’s the fact that I genuinely believe that that makes me feel guilty,” he says.

“Some people deserve to suffer regardless of what the heroes say. Some people are scum and they should be treated like it,” she says with conviction. Bruce might have his no killing rule but even Tony disagreed with that and he was right to- some people needed to die and Bruce was just too good or too naïve to see it.

Unsurprisingly her words reassure him and she knew what it was like, being surrounded by people that were so good. It was hard to have a wonky moral center in a room full of people that were moral beacons of good. “I swear you’re the only one around here that thinks that,” Bucky says, almost reading her mind.

“Sometimes I feel so dirty around here, I mean everyone is so good and I’m… not. I don’t think everyone deserves to live, and I don’t think anyone has an obligation to save the world because that’s just a ridiculous expectation to put on anyone, and sometimes torturing the bad guys is fun. It’s not really a good way to get information cuz people will just tell ya whatever but you can play mind games with ‘em and _then_ stab ‘em a little. But the heroes don’t like my style.” Bruce got all morally uptight if she even _hinted_ at punching the villains more than necessary because he was all on that second chance wagon. She probably coulda killed him and stole all his stuff and his ghost would haunt her just to continue his attempts to reform her. He was too good, and so was Tony for that matter.

Tony was all ‘woe is me’ and worried that he didn’t live up to his hero status but no normal human would try and tackle saving the whole world just because they built a badass suit one time. Most people would crap themselves, but not Tony. He took on his worst fear head on and started making _plans_ , starting with that Clark Kent guy he was so obsessed with all of the sudden. Harley didn’t understand how the only one who saw that other than her was Bruce but to be fair his old coworkers seemed like dicks.

“I so get that,” Bucky says, smiling at her softly. “I mean Steve… he’s not who he was but he’s still _way_ more moral than I am. I… I didn’t realize how off my morality was until they all started brainstorming ways to try and win Tony back and my first idea was just kidnapping the guy. I didn’t say it obviously, but it was more efficient than trying to talk things out with someone I knew would never be willing to do so.”

Harley cocks her head to the side, “what makes you think that? Tony has a surprisingly large capacity for forgiveness,” she says. He hated aliens on principal but he let a whole bunch of ‘em out of their contraptions because it was convenient for him. He even trusted that little tree one even though no one except that creepy raccoon could tell what it was saying.

Bucky shakes his head, “not for the Avengers. Well, maybe the Avengers, but not Steve. Not after what he did, what _I_ did,” he says.

“You mean killing his parents that one time? He’ll get over it,” she tells him confidently.

“I think we might be talking about a different person. I’m talking about Tony Stark,” Bucky says, giving her a skeptical look.

“Don’t you give me that,” Harley says, “I’m a trained professional, I know what I’m talking about. Tony isn’t mad at you, he’s mad he didn’t know, that someone close to him kept his parents’ murder from him. I know on some level he knows it wasn’t your fault that you killed his parents but I think that’s what’s making this so hard for him to get past. When people die, especially if they’re killed, people want to lay blame on someone or something. But Tony can’t blame you for his parents’ deaths because it wasn’t really you, but it wasn’t Steve either, and the people who made the call to kill Howard and Maria Stark are a mystery. He doesn’t know where to put the blame so you’re getting the brunt of it. It helps that technically you did do it,” she says. He wore the face of the murderer; it was easiest to blame him, even when Tony knew it was illogical.

“And how do you account for the way he’s treating you?” Bucky asks, clearly skeptical of her theory.

She shrugs, “he’s hurt. We were close and then you showed up and it was another person that chose you over him and he’s in pain. From his perspective I did exactly what Steve did, but this time you weren’t my best friend from seventy years ago that I obviously had an emotional attachment to. That’s almost worse.” Humans did weird things when they were in pain but all she had to do was wait it out.

“But you _didn’t_ do what Steve did at all, you never chose me over him,” Bucky says, frowning.

“Doesn’t matter. Perception is reality and that’s what he’s getting out of this.” That had always been her least favorite part of dealing with patients in the past, how absolutely _off_ their perceptions always were. But they were only human and humans made no sense, even when you studied them for a living.

“Then tell him that his perception is wrong,” Bucky says.

Harley shakes her head, “people don’t work like that. He’s gunna think what he believes for as long as he needs to. If I say something before he’s ready he isn’t gunna listen, he’ll just ignore me and I’ll waste my time. He’ll come around and when he does _then_ I’ll tell him what he wants to hear, but until then it’ll be in one ear and out the other.” She’s done this enough times to know exactly how this sort of thing worked. Plus with Tony he had a low self esteem- that was half the reason he was so set on the idea that Harley obviously abandoned him for Bucky anyways, that and this situation has already happened before. Arguably with more than Steve too- the rest of the Avengers cut him out and sided with Steve when all was said and done. That hurt and she knew he’d take time to come around.

“Well I hope he listens eventually because none of this is on you and you don’t deserve to be ignored because he got it all wrong,” Bucky says, a hint of protectiveness in his voice.

Harley smiles a little, “he isn’t doing this to be mean, he’s doing this because he’s been burned before. Don’t be so hard on him for giving me the cold shoulder, I can take it.” And a lot more too. By her standards this was child’s play and she was happy to let Tony ride it out.

*

“He called to Clark,” Tony says as he and Bruce finally manage to make it to bed after _another_ case of Gotham Has a Villain.

“You basically screamed it in his ear, that hardly counts,” Bruce says, throwing himself on his very comfortable bed. Thanks god for that too, if Bruce preferred a firm bed Tony would have had to leave him. Beds were meant to be squishy, not like sleeping on the ground the way Rhodey preferred.

Tony looks up his suits stats, finding out exactly how far away Clark Kent AKA Superman actually was. “The suit says I was over two hundred meters away when I said it and my voice decibels were in a normal vocal range so _ha_ ,” Tony says, sufficiently satisfied with his evidence. Bruce was all wrong based off that alone.

Bruce gives him a _look_ , “he has super hearing, Tony, you were basically yelling in his ear,” Bruce says.

“Uh huh, sure. He called to Clark because he’s used to it, otherwise he would have called to Bruce said at the same decibel, or any other name I called honestly. That’d just be too distracting, but when he was worried about trying to save everyone I decided to use his distractedness against him and call his name. His _actual_ name and he turned, ergo he’s Clark Kent,” Tony says firmly.

“You’re a scientist Tony, you know that isn’t how it works,” Bruce says, playing dirty now.

“Oh don’t you even bring that in. This is not science, this is a potential alien who for some reason is only showing up now and I _know_ its Clark Kent. I have a feeling,” he says. There was something seedy about that snarky reporter who pretended to be unassuming too much to actually be unassuming.

“Do you do science with feelings?” Bruce asks, grinning because _he_ thought he was about to win this argument but the joke was on him.

“I _do_ use feelings in science actually. Just not in the evidence collecting and math part of it all. I _know_ stuff will work, I have a feeling it will, I just need to prove it. And then I prove it just like I totally proved Clark Kent and Superman were one in the same. Seriously, the guy uses _glasses_ and the lack of that damn curl everyone has named after Superman as a disguise. That’s just embarrassing,” Tony says. He needed to go have a chat with Clark about disguises. Actually he wasn’t qualified for that given that given that he’s never used one but still. He’d at least do better than Clark Kent’s embarrassing mess of a disguise that for _some_ reason was actually working.

“You’re impossible,” Bruce tells him but he’s smiling at Tony.

“So I’ve been told, but I kind of like being difficult. Makes sure I never have fake friends,” he says. Most just walked away after a day of dealing with him. It was hardly a joke- he went through at least fifty assistants before Pepper came along and shocked the hell out of him with actual _competence_ at her job.

“Don’t lie, you hate being perceived as difficult. But the good news is that you’re not difficult,” Bruce says, “no come here and stop complaining about Clark Kent, I want to make sure you’re real after nearly having a heart attack when you just about got shot out of the sky.”

Superman had saved his ass, not that Tony couldn’t have dealt with it on his own, but it had at least given him a good idea of what Superman AKA Clark Kent could survive. Resistant was putting Clark’s powers to shame really; the man was damn near indestructible.

“Stop thinking about Clark Kent and get over here, you ass,” Bruce scolds, drawing Tony out of his own mind again.

Tony wiggles over, taking a small amount of happiness in Bruce pulling him closer and smiling to himself. “Fine, but I’m just saying Clark Kent is obviously Superman,” he says.

Bruce sighs, “oh my god Tony, let it go and let me enjoy your presence.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Went and seen the second Guardians today! I liked it though they went a bit heavy on the humor in the first half- a weird criticism from me, the person who loves humor but still. 
> 
> Anyways, sorry this took so long! I have been many busy!

“Hey Dummy, that isn’t the right tool!” Rocket yells at Dummy as he grabs the wrong wrench for him. “Sweet name by the way, I can’t feel bad for insulting him if his name is an insult,” Rocket says and Tony _thinks_ he grins but it’s hard to tell when he’s a freaking raccoon. That still throws him off and he could see that Bruce also had a hard time. He did a lot of trying not to smack Rocket every time he spoke.

“Exactly,” Tony tells him, grinning back. Technically the name came from the code but Rocket didn’t need to know that.

“God damnit, not that one either,” Rocket tells Dummy, throwing his little raccoon hands into the air in frustration.

“I am Groot,” Groot says to him, giving Rocket a disapproving look.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’ll be nice. See, _now_ he has the right one so obviously insulting him gets him to work right,” Rocket tells Groot. “So Stark, you see Kent on the news the other night?” he asks.

Tony raises an eyebrow, “Kent?” he asks.

“You know, the squirrely reporter that Bruce insists isn’t Superman? You’re right about him, he’s too perfect at playing clumsy,” Rocket says, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

“I don’t actually think that’s an act. Superman fumbles too and in a lot of the same ways, he’s just super strong and resistant when he does it,” Tony says. He’s been watching Superman almost as closely as he’s been watching Kent and they shared too many mannerisms to not be related in some way. Even if Bruce was right and Clark Kent wasn’t Superman he knew who Superman was because he shared a weird amount of mannerisms with the guy. Granted Bruce wasn’t right but that wasn’t the point.

“Hmm. Well I think this guy is hinky. I told you Kryptonians are dead, extinct actually and a Kryptonian wouldn’t be able to survive being blown up on their home planet. This guy’s presence is suspicious at best,” Rocket tells him. He leans over his current project, tail in the air as he tries to tighten a bolt.

“Think he has a connection to Thanos?” Tony asks.

Rocket shakes his head, “Thanos is good but even he can’t pull a dead species out of thin air. But I don’t know why he’s here and that’s never good,” he says.

Tony was inclined to agree but he needed more information on Kent, how he got here, what he was doing here, and his agenda if he has one before he made a proper judgment. After all Peter, Gamora, Drax, Groot, and Rocket all turned out okay. That didn’t make him less suspicious though.

*

Clark had been shocked when Stark called him on his being Superman right away. Bruce didn’t believe him at _all_ and Clark knew why. He’s clumsy- _naturally_ clumsy, small or at least that’s what the slightly too large clothes suggest, he wears glasses though no one knows the lead in the lenses keep him from seeing through everything, and he was a lowly reporter for the Daily Planet. No one would ever suspect him of being Superman for the same reason people who saw celebrity look alikes didn’t automatically assume they were looking at that celebrity. It was just too unlikely that that clumsy reporter who looked strangely like Superman in glasses was _actually_ Superman.

But Stark cut through that right away and it threw Clark. He denied it of course; he had an identity to protect and Lois too. He didn’t want people to find her and use her against him but he didn’t know how to avoid that happening either. So he did the only think he thought would help. He found Tony Stark to ask him for some heroing advice.

Admittedly Tony looks confused about his presence, and annoyed too. Clark was pretty sure he didn’t anticipate being cornered by Superman on his way back from the store with milk- a strangely mundane task for such a famous man and superhero- but Clark ignores that. “You have it out for me,” he says in way of a greeting. There was no need for playing games and he figured Tony would appreciate that.

He does, at least Clark _thinks_ he does. Tony tilts his head to the side, “what makes you think that?” he asks.

Clark raises an eyebrow, “do you tenaciously do your best to hound ever _other_ superhero you find because I haven’t seen evidence for that,” he says. And he’s looked too- his journalist skills were surprisingly useful for his superheroing abilities.

Tony snorts, “actually yeah, except I don’t need to get up close and personal with most of them to get the data I need. You’re power can’t be easily observed through cameras and personal experience. Most people don’t have laser eyes,” Tony points out. “So what’s with the glasses? Clearly you don’t need them when the data suggests that your eyesight is off the charts good.”

“I also have x-ray vision, which is a lot more fun in comics FYI. In real life it’s an absolute pain to see through most things. What data is it you’re looking for though, and why?” he asks. He hadn’t heard of this but Tony was good at keeping things to himself when he wanted to. He’s never known a life outside the public eye and it showed in the way he did nearly everything.

“X-ray vision, seriously? Wait, you can see through _most_ things… your glasses have lead in them so you can see normally. They’re like a focus item… that’s brilliant, who thought of that?” Tony asks, brows drawing together as he thinks.

God damnit Clark was getting annoyed with his ability to put two and two together. “The data, Tony,” he prompts.

Tony looks him over, squinting a little suspiciously. “Why are you here? What is your purpose?” he asks.

Clark frowns, “did you just ask me in a roundabout way what the meaning of life is? I have no idea why I’m here, why I was sent _here_ specifically. The only thing I know is that my planet is dead and I was somehow saved. That I’m the last of my kind. That’s a hard cross to carry,” he says almost sadly. It was ridiculous to miss people he never even knew but he couldn’t help but wonder what his parents were like, why they saved _him_ and not someone else more worthy or if their decision was based purely on the fact that he was their son. Or was it someone else that saved him? He’d never know because he had no idea what Kryptonian culture, or cultures, were like. He imagined they functioned like humans but he knew that wasn’t true, it couldn’t be, Krypton was a different planet.

“How long have you been here?” Tony asks, frowning.

“My whole life, why? Well, not my _whole_ life. I was a baby when I got here but it isn’t like I remember that,” he says. There was nothing Tony could trace back with all of that, not really. His parents had made sure that everything looked right on paper.

“Huh. That changes things a little. So why are you here, talking to me specifically?” he asks. There were other wheels turning in his head but Clark left him be for now. It was better to build rapport before someone took his claims that Clark was Superman seriously.

“I need your advice,” Clark says.

Tony snorts, “you need advice go to someone who’s qualified to give it to you,” Tony says.

“That’s the thing. I’ve done my research on the current availability of heroes and you’re the least successful,” he says and winces as Tony does, not realizing how harsh that was until it’s already out. _Shit_. “That makes you useful you know, because you’re the one who has the most experience in failure. In my opinion that makes you the best hero,” he says. It sounds off and it doesn’t make sense following on the heels of his last comment and Tony knows it.

“The fact that I’m a complete failure makes me the best hero? Bit contradictory there, Kent,” he mumbles.

“It means that you know better than anyone that you’re not infallible. I can see how you try and change with every failure, how you try to get _better_. No other hero does that and remaining stagnant is _scary_. You always need to know that you aren’t doing your best and you _always_ have to know that you could have to change everything you do and how you do it to better serve the people you’re trying to save. No other hero knows that like you do, and no other hero does their best to change everything about themselves to serve the people like you do. So I’m here asking you for advice because your failures make you the best suited to tell me how to do what I do better,” Clark tells him.

It’s the right thing to say, he knows, because Tony’s facial expressions change every other word until he finishes his speech. Tony looks away for a moment, blinking hard before he turned back to Clark, “want my advice? Don’t be anything like me. Be like Steve, he’s the most successful.”

“And the least willing to change to better suit the people. That’s not what I want. I’m asking _you_ for a reason. You also seem the most likely to team up with other heroes, which confuses me because you consistently say that you’re not much of a team player,” Clark says. While Tony did do things- usually things that went badly- on his own he seemed to favor a team environment. If he didn’t, Clark reasons, than he would have never joined Bruce and Harley. Actually Tony was what _made_ them a team rather than one villain a hero was trying to reform. What confused Clark more was the strange amount of animosity Tony and the rest of the Avengers had for each other, especially when the Avengers were doing their best to get Tony back to their team.

Their efforts didn’t seem to be going well if Tony’s repeated rebuffs were anything to go by. More than that Tony showed further knowledge of functioning well in a team environment because he was quite good at tripping up his old team, including the members he didn’t know that well.

“Okay fine. Don’t be arrogant enough to invite terrorists to blow up your house and end up surprised when they do it, don’t run programs on alien stones and end up surprised that a genocidal AI is the result, and don’t get PTSD for the life of you. People _will_ roll their eyes when you inevitably freak out about aliens on account of that one time you flew through a wormhole after nearly getting killed by aliens that were trying to take over the world. Oh, and never mention that one time you saved the world,” Tony says bitterly, jaw clenched.

“I… feel like that was directed towards someone that wasn’t me. I do want a serious answer though- people hate you when you make mistakes and they just as easily hail you when you don’t. How do you deal with that? And how do you deal with making too many mistakes?” he asks. People flipped and flopped on how much they loved and hated him too fast for him to keep track of and Tony would know about that from a lifetime of experience, not just from his time as a hero.

Tony considers his words for a long moment, “you never get used to it and my best advice is to ignore it, but we both know that’s impossible. So try and focus on the positive the best you can, talk to kids. That’s always the best thing about being a hero. Kids don’t care how much you fuck up, how _badly_ you fucked up. They always have hope for you and sometimes that’s the only thing you’ve got. You want to be a good hero, Clark? Than be the hero kids think you are and try your best to not let them down,” Tony says.

It’s the first bit of _actual_ advice Tony has given him but Clark thinks it speaks volumes about the man. Of all the things that could motivate Tony Stark and it was _children_. “Kids motivate you?” Clark asks, almost unsure. Tony gives him a _look_ and Clark sighs, “you famously dislike children,” he points out.

“No. I famously don’t _want_ kids. When you’re a guy people assume that’s because you don’t like them. I love kids, always have, but I never wanted any in case I ended up… well, like me,” he says. He looks sad and like he couldn’t quite remember how he got to where he was.

That confused Clark because, “you might be flawed, Tony, but you aren’t a bad man. Flaws make you human, and unlike most when you fail you try to learn. You’re never kept down very long. Bruce is lucky to have you,” he says.

Tony remains silent for a long few moments before he frowns, “how do you know who Bruce is, other than covering stories about him for the Daily Planet, obviously,” he says.

“X-ray vision, Tony,” Clark reminds him.

“Right. Forgot about that little tidbit for a moment. But you’re wrong about me, and given that you’re an alien you don’t know much about what it’s like to be human,” Tony points out.

“I’ve only ever known being human despite my alien DNA, and given my godlike powers maybe I know what it’s like to be human more than most humans. I have to pretend to be one, after all. And I’m not wrong about you, I’ve done enough research to know that even in your worst days you were still a good man somewhere in there.” Pretty deep down in his partying days, but he grew out of that eventually.

“Has it ever occurred to you that you could just… wipe us all out with those powers of yours?” Tony asks, head tilted to the side.

Clark shakes his head, “not until someone wrote about how I could hurt people in a newspaper. Can’t remember which one now but I was shaken when I read it because harming people hadn’t even occurred to be before that.” Lois had noticed that he was shaken but he never did tell her what was wrong. But it had never even crossed his mind the things he could do to people to hurt him, why would it? He’s never been a particularly violent person.

Tony considers him for a long moment, “oddly enough I believe you.”

*

“He’s totally Clark Kent, he didn’t even _deny_ it,” Tony tells Bruce.

“But did he admit it?” Bruce asks.

Tony rolls his eyes, “of course not, you heroes have a problem with admitting who you are around these parts,” he says. Heroes here were weird and the villains were weirder. A criminal _clown_ and a vigilante _bat_? You’d think those would be flipped or at the very least that Batman would be the bad guy even if Joker wasn’t good. Bats were night creatures and everyone knew that the freaks came out at night. Bruce might be something of a freak but that had nothing to do with his heroing abilities. Though Tony wanted Bruce to teach him how to get out of handcuffs, he’d never managed to keep him in place for longer than five minutes and by now he’s employed Harley’s help.

He didn’t much care for the idea but she had a better idea of what Bruce was capable of and Tony had somehow taken Bruce’s ability to escape as a challenge to keep him in place after awhile. Bucky had hesitantly offered a few suggestions the last time he talked to Harley about it but he had left when Tony glared at him long enough. Harley looked like she wanted to say something but she wisely did not.

“We aren’t as flashy as you heroes from New York,” Bruce tells him. “So the galaxy alien people, they have any news on their crazy alien guy?” he asks.

Tony shakes his head, “not yet and they’re called the Guardians of the Galaxy. Lame, I know, but still. That raccoon freaks me out but he’s smart as hell and his little buddy Groot is absolutely adorable. I’ve told them to keep me updated on any news they hear about Thanos and in the meantime I’m trying to contact Thor to warn him. Never had to make some kind of technology to transmit messages across _worlds_ before but Rocket is helping me out with that.” He couldn’t believe he’s been outsmarted by a _raccoon_ three times this week but in his defense his tech was _way_ beyond Tony’s. Rocket had thought he was an idiot at first, at least until he started picking up on the mechanics and improving them.

“I don’t care what their name is, just about that alien they say is coming. Do we even know if they’re telling the truth?” Bruce asks.

“They’re more nervous than us, especially the green one. Gamora I think her name was. I don’t think they’re lying,” Tony says. Rocket was concerned too, and their stories were all too similar to be made up and they ever wavered. Tony knew how to spot a lie and unless these people spent years perfecting their stories to match in ways that were similar but not so similar that an obvious lie was being told than they weren’t lying at all. That worried him because he almost wanted them to be lying. Then _they_ were the threat and he could deal with that.

Bruce sighs and leans back in his large reading chair, “fine then. Come here, I missed you and I’m still a little freaked out about you almost dying not long ago,” he says, gesturing for Tony to come closer.

He goes to Bruce and allows himself to be pulled into his lap, smiling as Bruce presses a kiss to his temple. “You know I died once and Bruce- Banner not you- scared me back to life. I mean technically I wasn’t dead yet but still, dude scared me back to life.” It still freaked him out sometimes.

“You are strange and unusual. And so is your other Bruce,” Bruce says. Well, he wasn’t wrong.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for mentions of torture.

People were worried about Superman and for good reason, Bruce thinks, and it was something he thought Tony would agree with. At least he did until he _defended_ Superman.

“You aren’t taking this seriously,” some annoying bigwig, Bruce lost track of who, says and he can visibly see Tony restrain himself from smacking the man. He’s learned through Tony’s reactions to some comments he’s made (and apologized for), Harley’s analysis, and Bucky’s observations that this was a sore spot for him. Bruce had to admit that people assumed Tony took things far less serious than he did consistently regardless of how seriously he made a statement. Harley had thoughts on that and it was nice to see her getting back into psychology. She’s even been reading recent research released in the field, bringing herself up to date in her area of expertise.

“Do you not remember that time I flew a nuke through that worm hole in New York?” Tony asks and the bigwig rolls his eyes.

“Oh for gods sake-” he starts but Tony cuts him off.

“Shut up for a minute. What I saw when I went through that hole was ten times scarier than what you guys saw on the ground. I _still_ have nightmares about it regularly, enough that when the Scarlet Witch showed me my worst fear it was that. The whole _world_ died in that dream thanks to aliens. Don’t act like I didn’t shit my pants a little when some random alien with god-like powers showed up on the scene playing hero. But I’ve talked to the guy and as unlikely as it seems I don’t think he even considered he could be a danger until someone else pointed it out to him. I think he’s genuinely motivated to help. Whether or not he’s doing that is up for debate,” he says. That was likely do to the recent oil spill caused by Superman though in his defense he did manage to clean things up quickly. Still, the damage was done and in the height of environmental awareness this was bad press.

In Bruce’s opinion he thought Superman was far too undisciplined. He spent _years_ training for his role as Batman, did everything he could to make sure that he was the best hero he could be. Superman just showed up one day and started shooting laser beams out of his eyes. But Tony’s support of the hero was something to be noted considering he started more skeptical than Bruce had. “I’m not so sure you’re right. Superman is… reckless,” Bruce says finally. It was insufficient but it would do.

“No more than I am,” Tony points out.

“That might be true, but your suit can be easily destroyed. Thus far we don’t even know if Superman even _has_ a weakness,” Bruce says. That worried him, the idea of a hero without a weakness. Tony’s was his trauma, Harley’s was her villain past, Bucky’s was HYDRA, and his was his emotional trauma from losing his parents.

“Uh, no, it can’t be easily destroyed that’s the entire _point_. Still, people don’t exist without some kind of weakness and that Lex Luthor guy in particular wants to fuck Superman sideways. He’ll find it,” Tony says with a weird amount of confidence.

“You can’t know that,” the bigwig says and Bruce agrees though he doesn’t say so.

Tony snorts, “than you’ve never met Lex Luthor. I have and _trust_ me when the man is motivated he’s getting whatever it is he’s looking for.”*

*

Harley watches the scene in front of her play out, analyzing things like she would have when she was a psychiatrist. It’s been a long time but she’s never really lost the skill, she just used it for evil instead of good. When she was a girl her father had been a mean piece of shit and she had gone into psychology to try and understand what made a person like that. She didn’t find the answers until she was a mean piece of shit herself. People like that just didn’t care and sometimes she even found it fun to torture people the way she did. She wasn’t sure what that said about human nature or it was just her nature that was wrong.

The Avengers, though, proved to be psychologically interesting. Tony Stark, if you knew anything about psychology, was an interesting dude but the rest of the Avengers were just as fascinating. Wanda, Harley thinks, is the most like her. She started out pretty normal, got all messed up, and then she did some really nasty things because she damn well felt like it. She told herself that it was because she wanted to get back at Tony for killing her parents but she was more than intelligent enough to pull that off without joining a terrorist organization. She did that because she wanted to, because she craved power and didn’t care who she hurt to get it.

Natasha had a dark past that involved Russians but no one knew the details specifically. She certainly had issues though; Harley could see that in the way she carried herself. Vision was generally ignorant to the world, but not unwilling to learn and with his supercomputer of a brain it wasn’t completely difficult for him to find whatever information he wanted. Clint was an asshole though she doubted that stemmed from trauma though he had plenty of that too. He seemed to be as paranoid about aliens as Tony but he didn’t voice it the same way and she noticed that the Avengers didn’t seem to shame him for it.

Steve, though, easily had the worst of it and not necessarily because he’d suffered more than the others. Natasha’s unknown past involved torture and bad people similar to Bucky’s, Harley was certain she had the worst of it while Steve and Wanda tied for second. But it was Steve that felt his trauma the most. What she found most interesting about this is that _no one_ ever told him and he seemed completely unaware of it himself. Most of this trauma was taken out on Bucky though it was clear this wasn’t what he meant to do.

She could see how uncomfortable Bucky was when Steve mentioned some comment, something he thought Bucky should understand but he so obviously didn’t. He felt like he should though, like he was letting Steve down by not remembering every detail he did. Harley has reminded him time and time again that after his trauma it was a miracle he was even functioning. Her Puddin’ never did anything to her that HYDRA would have done to Bucky minus a little electroshock therapy but that was only a time or fifty. She was fine. Bucky, however, didn’t seem to know how to deal with Steve and Steve didn’t know how to deal with himself any better from her observations. It was like his whole existence centered on Bucky because Bucky was a part of the past he was obviously clinging so hard to.

Maybe that was why he resented Tony so much. It would make sense- Tony was often thought of as a symbol of the future and Steve didn’t deal with the future very well.

“Do you know what electroshock therapy does to the brain when you don’t do it right?” she asks suddenly and Bucky flinches. She feels bad for doing this but mentioning a torture technique wouldn’t harm him more than what Steve was doing to him, pretending like he was the same person. Pretending that _Steve_ was the same person.

“Uh, no?” Steve says, frowning at her because this was the first time she said much of anything since her arrival here with Bucky. She thinks Bucky wanted to go through that usual ‘meet the parents’ phase except everyone he knows but Steve is dead so he ended up being the parents instead of Bucky’s actual parents.

“Confusion certainly, but in high dosages with no anesthesia like back in the fifties can cause memory loss- obviously that was the goal for HYDRA- but it can also cause broken bones and fractures from the convulsions. And that’s not even all of it. Bucky had that done every time he came out of and went back into cryo, so why you think he can remember some inconsequential detail of his childhood I have no idea. He shouldn’t even be able to remember how to use a toilet,” she says. Sometimes, when he was asleep, he’d dream he was back with HYDRA and his body tensed and he whimpered a little and her heart broke for him. The fact that he was still moving around trying to move past that was so impressive to her. He was far braver than she could ever be.

Steve winces harder than Bucky does at her statement though and she finds that curious. “I… didn’t mean anything by it,” he says, shooting Bucky an apologetic look.

“Yes you did,” Harley tells him. From behind Steve Bucky shakes his head just a little at her but she doesn’t listen. “You aren’t doing well here in the future and you think Bucky is going to solve that for you.”

This gets her an eyebrow raise from Steve, “and what qualifications do you even _have_ to make that assumption?” he asks in a rebellious tone that she recognized from all the stories, and comics, and press conferences. It was the voice he used when he thought he was right.

“Well I mean I’m a _doctor_ , plus I know people well. I didn’t need to go to med school to see that Bucky is your ultimate weakness, you let eleven people die not to long ago because you froze in the middle of the field when your opponent mentioned Bucky’s name. You invaded other countries so much trying to find him that the world banded together to write legislation keeping you out. And now that Bucky is here you keep acting like he’s your old buddy from before the war. I’m not sayin’ this to be mean, but neither one of you are ever going to be the people you were and if you don’t realize that and work through it now people are gunna get hurt.” People already _have_ been hurt and that didn’t even include the damage to the Avengers as a team.

“That legislation was written for the _Avengers_ , Harley,” Steve tells her in a steely voice, drawing himself up straighter.

If he thought that was going to intimidate her he had another thing coming. She’s seen far scarier than Steve Rogers even before she was Harley Quinn.

“And the Avengers followed _you_ around on your quest to get back a piece of the past you’re never gunna get. You’re living in the past, Steve, and it’s really messin up your future, and Bucky’s. He’s trying to move on so stop trying to pull him into the past- you don’t live there anymore.” It’s harsh, she knows, but she’s feeling particularly protective of Bucky and no one else was gunna give it to Steve straight so she decided that she had to.

Steve’s eyes narrow, “you have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says in a low, dangerous tone. Behind him Bucky is out and out shaking his head at her, apparently recognizing that she was close to a limit of Steve’s but she knew how to push people’s buttons. She was nowhere near the end of his limit. He had a considerable amount of self control most of the time. The only thing that was pressing his buttons at all at the moment was that she was using Bucky in her argument.

“Don’t I? You’re only mad because I hit too close to home and you don’t like it. Well I’m not your Avengers and I’m not Bucky. They might be scared to tell you the truth but I’m not. You need to talk to someone about your problems instead of expecting Bucky to be your Prozac. He isn’t a cure to your inability to adjust to the future and I’m not going to let you treat him like he is. That’s not fair,” she tells him, glaring right back at him. Steve Rogers, she could tell, was not used to a person who fought back like this and he didn’t like it. He was a man that was used to getting respect on principal but that just wasn’t how she worked. Captain America didn’t hold the same kind of valor and respect to her that he did to most people, not when she could see he wasn’t what the world thought he was.

“You’re overstepping your bounds,” he all but growls at her, “I’d suggest you step down.”

Harley laughs and leans into his personal space, standing on her toes to get in his face. “Or _what_?” she asks in a low, daring tone. “You can’t control me, and you can’t intimidate me either. Not when I know you’re only mad because you know I’m right and it makes you mad.” She holds his gaze for several tight moments and she can feel how on edge the Avengers around her were, including Wanda even though she had to know Steve wouldn’t do anything to her. That just wasn’t the kind of man he was. Eventually Steve steps back and Harley does too, knowing she’s won this fight.

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Bucky says to her as soon as they’re out of Steve’s earshot, “I can’t believe you just went after him like that.”

She shrugs, “I didn’t say nothin’ that wasn’t true. Are you okay?” she asks, gently touching his arm, the flesh one. He had some issues with the other one and she was alright with working around that. She’d have issues with it if she were him too.

Bucky considers her question for a long moment and she takes that as a good sign. He used to just claim he was alright, even when he was pretty wounded, and she was happy to see that he was moving past that. “Yeah, I am. I’m really relieved actually, you kind of said everything to Steve I wanted to. I know he isn’t doing it on purpose but sometimes I just want to scream that I’m not who he thinks I am, that I’m not even sure if I was who he thought I was back then either. So thank you for standing up for me like that,” she says.

“No problem!” she chirps, grinning and looping her arm through Bucky’s. She declares that she wants ice cream and he’s happy to let her drag him off. It was such a strange dynamic to her after years of J but she’s alright with it. Bucky was soft, passive, but she could sense something underneath all that, something dangerous and it was just as thrilling as it had been with J. except Bucky was probably a lot safer and that was sayin something considering he’s one of the most accomplished assassins in history.

*

Tony is asleep in Bruce’s bed when Peter comes and wakes him up in the middle of the night. “Dude, I need you to get some kind of equipment together or something because I’m pretty sure Thanos is heading here _now_ ,” he says in a dead panic.

He sits straight up in bed, his fight with Bruce the night before almost forgotten. “ _What_?” he asks, shaking his head to clear it a little. Last he checked Thanos was headed to a ‘Novacore’ before he did anything else.

“Rocket and I just go word that he Novacore has been broken into and you guessed it, the infinity stone is gone. Problem number two? Asgard was busted into as well and _two_ infinity stones are missing. The other two are here,” he says.

What that means was implied and Tony jumps out of bed. “Get Bruce to the Batcave, Harley too. And Barnes if he’s around. I’m calling Kent,” he says and he heads out the door, not waiting for Peter’s response.

When he gets to the Batcave he finds Drax and Gamora talking strategy while Rocket hit buttons on the keyboard of his work station swearing. “FRIDAY, keep an eye out for absolutely anything unusual that mimics the alien attack in New York. _Anything_ that looks weird, FRIDAY. Rocket, what are you doing?” he asks.

“Trying to get your AI to do what you just asked it. You can just ask it to do stuff?” Rocket asks, glaring at the ceiling like most people did when they were annoyed with his AI. It was a weird habit.

“He kept insulting your technology so I thought I would teach him something,” FRIDAY says and under normal circumstances Tony would find that hilarious. Not this time.

“FRIDAY, we can’t afford lessons on insulting tech,” he tells the AI.

“Noted. There has been a disturbance in south Nepal,” FRIDAY says and Tony groans.

“Please don’t tell me you’ve been sitting on that since Rocket has been trying to figure you out,” he says.

“What do I look like to you? Of course I am not that incompetent, the disturbance took place moments ago,” the AI tells him.

Rocket looks as relieved as Tony felt. “Alright, lets get the Milano together, Stark get your suit, Batsy get batting, we got some crazy genocidal dickbag to murder the crap out of,” Rocket yells, his voice carrying easily across the Batcave. Bruce, Harley, and Barnes all looked really confused because they only just got here. Tony gestures at them to suit up and Peter starts running to his ship.

“Sir, there appears to be a disturbance by- well right in front of you,” FRIDAY says. Tony almost calls the AI nuts but then a circle of sparks appears in front of him and he jumps back in surprise.

“Don’t shoot!” the person yells as he steps through, “my name is Steven Strange and I think we may be on the same side.”


	7. Chapter 7

According to Stephen Strange, some guy from Nepal who was apparently a fucking _sorcerer_ another infinity stone was missing. FRIDAY was on analyzing the details but either way they all knew where Thanos was headed next. To Vision. Tony had already called the Avengers to warn Vision, who gracefully accepted what was about to come because one of two things was happening. One, they take down Thanos _before_ he kills Vision and gets the last stone, or two, he kills Vision and they have to fight him with all of the infinity stones in some magical gauntlet that would give him considerably more power. According to Gamora the man has already taken out entire worlds and he hadn’t even had infinity stones at that point so as far as Tony was concerned the earth was fucked sixty-seven ways to Sunday and he got a front row seat to this shitshow. _Lovely_.

“Hey,” Harley says, walking up and sitting beside him with a weird amount of pep in her step. That was just the way she was though.

Tony gives her a brief nod. “Bruce has been calling his own set of heroes all over the place. You ever met the Canary? You don’t want her to scream at you, it’ll bow your ear drums and it doesn’t do nice things to your balance,” she says, offering a small smile.

“So I’ve heard. Don’t you have a boyfriend to go console?” he asks. Barnes looked pretty freaked out last he saw him, more than Steve had but maybe that was because he had considered the very probable possibility that they’ll lose this battle. Steve? Not so much and Tony didn’t know if it was out of arrogance or if it was some kind of team leader façade he was throwing up to deal with this. He didn’t really care either way.

“Bucky is a lot less freaked out than you are,” Harley says, shrugging.

He snorts, “think anyone else would agree with that?” He had jumped into leader mode with Gamora of all people, bouncing ideas off her because she had insider knowledge and he has been studying alien tech since they showed up. Given that apparently _none_ of the Guardians have had run-ins with the Chitari it was mostly Tony’s knowledge they were going off of. Rocket was going through Tony’s database and adding what he knew to it so they could come up with some kind of strategy for dealing with Thanos. Drax was working with the possibility that the Kree, another alien race, would be working alongside Thanos and coming up with a strategy to deal with that. Steve got to deal with the Avengers and Barnes graciously volunteered to be the go-between between Tony’s team and Steve’s. Tony didn’t question it because it was better Barnes than him.

“I doubt anyone would agree with me,” Harley says, “but no one knows what to look for either. I know you better. You’ve been on about aliens for years and you’ve had them used against you a couple times, like with Wanda. I know you aren’t okay but do you think you will be? Because the fact that you aren’t having panic attacks right now is kinda impressive. Got any tips for the rest of us?” she asks, head tilted to the side. Tony couldn’t decide if he liked the blonde hair or the black and red hair better but it didn’t matter either way so mostly he just debated with himself on the subject.

“Stay focused on some kind of goal,” he says.

“Avoidance,” Harley corrects. “Solid solution, I do that all the time,” she says, gently bumping his shoulder with hers.

“What do you really want?” he asks after a few moments of silence. She wanted something, he was sure of it.

Harley doesn’t answer right away. Instead she curls her legs up to her chest and considers things for a few long moments. “I wanted to tell you that I didn’t choose Bucky over you. I thought I’d have time to let you sort out some of your emotions on your own without stirin’ ‘em up myself but now aliens are probably gunna kill us all so I wanted you to know that I didn’t even realize who he was when I met him. It’s not like I watch the news. When I found out I thought I’d get to tell you myself but then aliens showed up and we had to beat them up a little and call you.”

Sure didn’t look that way to him. Bucky showed up and then she stopped speaking to him entirely, which he tells her because it’s true.

“No, you stopped speaking to me, I only gave you the same treatment because I knew you wouldn’t listen. Your stubborn but I knew you’d come around, telling Bruce not to boot Bucky out proved that. I was just giving you time to adjust before I said something but we’re out of time. I should have tried right away, I’m sorry,” she says.

Nothing else follows the apology. No excuses, no ‘you could have talked to me’, no mentions of forgiving Bucky, nothing. Just that she thought she had some time to work things out in a different way and that she didn’t think that was what was best now. It’s probably the least shitty apology he’s gotten from anyone who wasn’t Rhodey. He jumps to his feet, swearing and Harley is quick to follow. “Rhodey!” he says in explanation but Harley shakes her head.

“Already had the sorcerer guy go tell him what was happening. He’s mostly waiting on some kind of instructions on what to do,” she says.

As quickly as he got the burst of energy it goes and he flops back down and sighs. “What do you mean he’s waiting for some kind of instructions on what to do? He’s not doing anything, did he forget that he can barely walk with a bunch of assistance?” he asks.

Harley laughs though there isn’t much humor to it. “I don’t know anythin’ about James Rhodes but something tells me not having legs isn’t gunna stop him. You might want to give him something to do before he finds something himself,” Harley tells him.

*

Barry Allen obviously heard about the aliens, who _hadn’t_ hear about that epic battle in New York? What he hadn’t anticipated was that the aliens were coming back with these things called infinity stones and were apparently going to destroy the planet. When he asked about the motivation he essentially got told that bad men didn’t need motivations, which only made this all about one thousand percent more terrifying.

“Oliver! Hey,” he says when he spots him in his Arrow gear and he zips up to him, sending papers flying all over the place. Batman glares at him, Barry thinks anyways, and oddly so does Oliver.

“Did you seriously just call me that?” he asks, annoyed.

“Call you what? You’re name?” Barry asks.

“Oliver whom?” Tony Stark- _Tony freaking Stark_ \- asks, frowning.

Oliver continues to glare at Barry and not say anything so Barry finally answers. “Queen. Oliver Queen.”

“God damnit, why did I decide working with you was a good idea?” Oliver mumbles and pulls his hood down.

“Because I’m super fast and very awesome,” Barry says in a chipper tone that no one else, even Tony Stark, seems to share.

“How old are you?” Batman asks, squinting at him.

“Who cares? He’s got experience and he’s faster than me in the suit, Star Labs sent be a shit ton of information. I though they went under though?” Tony asks to him specifically.

Barry jumps a little in surprise and Oliver rolls his eyes. “They did, kind of. But no one else was qualified to deal with my uh… abilities. There are more, by the way, metahumans. Enhanced people. We should really just make one term and use it,” he says more to himself than the others.

“Great, know any that are willing to die for a cause?” Tony asks and Barry winces.

“Maybe? Depends on if I can convince him there’s something in it for him,” he says.

“No, no you are _not_ calling Leonard Snart!” Oliver tells him.

“And Mick,” Barry adds. “And we have to, they could help.”

“Their abilities are?” Tony asks, StarkPad in hand to make notes.

“Mick controls fire and Leo controls ice. They’re partners. Usually criminals but sometimes they help me out,” Barry says. Tony frowns at that but makes a note of it while Oliver starts complaining. “You guys can ignore him, he’s just jealous. Where’s Cisco? I thought he was supposed to show up to help you guys read the data on my abilities?”

So far he also noticed that Laurel, AKA the Black Canary, wasn’t around and neither was Superman. Those were the heroes he knew the most about or kept in contact with so he wondered where they were. Oh, and the Avengers, he wondered where they were too.

“I’m over here and apparently useless. I forgot that sometimes people are smarter than me so I’m kind of useless,” he says, making his presence across the room known.

“I thought you were a metahuman?” Tony asks, frowning.

“I am but all I can do is see alternative timelines, that’s completely useless here,” he points out. Barry kind of had to agree. “I call myself Vibe,” he throws out and Tony snickers immediately.

“Like short for ‘vibrator’?” he asks.

Cisco rolls his eyes, “no, like short for vibrations because I can- you know what, I am not explaining this. Point is I’m powered but useless.”

“Not necessarily, you said you can see alternate timelines, meaning that if I were to turn back time right now you’d see what was happening right now and whatever was happening in the new day, right?” some Asian guy asks. Barry thinks someone mentioned a sorcerer from Nepal so he had to guess that was this guy.

“Yeah I guess. That’s how I figured out I had powers, Barry ran fast enough to accidentally go back a little in time and I could feel what happened in the alternate timeline. We can’t just make infinite timelines though,” he says.

The sorcerer guy shrugs, “sure you can. That’s how I won a battle with an interdimensional demon, essentially. I made us relive the same moment over and over and over again until he agreed to give up and break the loop, setting us both free. I’m not sure how well that would work here but if I had to turn things back it would be useful to have someone who could tell us what went wrong. We could strategize,” he says.

That actually wasn’t half bad and everyone else seemed to think so too. “Okay, so you’re on the back burner then. You,” Tony says, pointing to Oliver, “you’re an archer? Because we already have one of those. I’m happy to replace him because he’s a jackass but I’m hoping you’ve got something else up your sleeve.”

Barry snorts, “oh if you want an archer that isn’t a jackass you might not want Oliver. He shot me one time with arrows for the heck of it.”

“It was a training exercise, Barry, let it go. And to answer your question I’m also an expert marksman, I’m heavily trained in hand-to-hand combat, and I’m something of an expert on technology,” he says.

“All things we already have. Well, you’re basically the low-rent version of Clint, me, and Steve Rogers combined but whatever, we’ll take it,” he says and Batman snickers a little, sounding way weird through that voice mod. Oliver prickles but Barry jumps in to defend him.

“I think you might be underestimating him a little. He beat me in a fight once,” Barry says.

Tony looks him up and down, “that wouldn’t take much if you weren’t using your powers, no offense.”

He wasn’t wrong, he wasn’t very good at fighting and he had to make up for it with sheer intelligence and strategy. “Except I _was_ using my powers and I was pretty damn pissed off too. One of the loose metahumans we were wrangling can control anger and I was uh, influenced. Oliver had to take me down and trust me I went at him with everything I had and then some and he still won.”

Tony squints at him, “I don’t know if that makes Oliver remarkable or you really awful at your job.”

“Kind of both,” Cisco says and Barry makes an offended noise. “What? You were new to things then, I seriously doubt he’d beat you now. Still, Barry is right. Oliver isn’t a metahuman and by all means he’s pretty unremarkable on the outside but he is really good.”

“And technically a serial killer,” Batman mumbles under his breath.

“A _what_?” Tony asks, looking at him. He quickly shakes his head, “you know what, who cares? We don’t have time to care. Where is Kent? And has anyone patched in the Avengers yet? And wasn’t that Canary person supposed to be here? I don’t see any birds,” he says.

“Laurel is running late,” Oliver tells him and Barry jumps on it.

“Did you just give up her identity? Golly gee Oliver, that’s _horrible_ ,” he says dramatically. Oliver flips him off and Tony ignores them both after a quick shake of his head.

“Great. And Kent is _where_ , exactly?” he asks.

“I’m here, I came as soon as I could,” some lanky guy says from across the room. Barry wondered who this one was supposed to be.

Tony seems to ignore all of this in favor of jumping up and down in excitement, “I told you! I _told_ you! He’s Clark Kent! Ha, in your face, Bruce!”

“Bruce?” Oliver and Barry say in sync.

“Bruce Wayne,” Tony and, of all people, Clark Kent say in sync.

Oliver frowns, “what the hell? We used to party together when we were in school!” he says, obviously affronted.

Bruce rolls his eyes and removes his bat hat (haha, bat hat). “No Queen, _you_ partied and I had a single drink, pretended I was drunk, and made sure you and Merlin didn’t die on the streets or in some sketchy club bathroom.”

“I’m genuinely offended that you didn’t invite me along,” Tony says, hands on his hips.

“I don’t think the world could have handled you and Queen partying together in the height or your party days, honey. The world could barely handle you two on your own let alone together,” Bruce says, laying a hand on Tony’s shoulder.

“Batman is gay?” Barry says to no one in particular.

“ _Tony Stark_ is gay?” Oliver says, frowning. To be fair that sorcerer guy also looked surprised.

“Bisexual,” both of them say in sync.

*

Tony was thankful that Bruce was as rich as he was otherwise housing what had to be the largest meeting of superheroes history was likely to see would be a way bigger pain in the ass. As it was they were all scrambling to stick everyone in accommodations that they were confortable with, which meant keeping the Avengers far away from Tony but also far away from Clark, who also decided he didn’t care for them, and apparently neither did Oliver. Tony thought that he shouldn’t judge anything Steve did given that after some research the guy actually _was_ an out and out serial killer for a good year. A rare thing, Tony taking Steve’s side of things, but come on?

Still, they did manage to work out accommodations, barely, so they could move on with strategy. Strange gave them some idea of what to look for in Thanos’ goons, Gamora also had information on that front, and with their target so close Tony didn’t think they’d miss him coming. He just had to hope that they were able to actually fight back.

“I have no idea if we’ll manage, Tony, but we will try,” Bruce says, coming up behind him and wrapping his arms around Tony’s waist.

“We better hope so,” is all Tony says as he thinks of all the possibilities.

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


End file.
